Furious Angels I: Nameless Here Forevermore
by Genius Detective L
Summary: The human whose name is written in the Death Note shall die - and in that moment, Light realized that he wasn't ready to give up his nemesis at all. L copes, Light does not understand, Ryuuk and Misa encounter something new, and the god Kira cannot die...
1. I've Got No Options Left

**Authors' Note:** Greetings and welcome to the story!

**(For godssakes, if you don't know the major spoilers up through episode 25 of the series and don't want to, TURN BACK NOW. Thank you.)**

Still here? Okay. XD So. Just about everybody that's watched _Death Note_ and starts shipping Light and L starts thinking about How It Would All Be Different If L Didn't Die, right? The simplest explanation for this story is that it's our own take.

A slightly longer explanation is that we started talking and... got inspired. I'd say it got out of hand, but that would imply that we don't know where we're going with it. The story took off, and while this first arc deals primarily with L and Light's relationship, the _rest_ of the story will become more apparent as things go on. (It seems we independently stumbled across an idea or two that the fandom has latched on to before; don't blame us, we haven't read a lot yet. Got more addicted to the plotting and writing. And designing original Shinigami is _fun_.)

I don't know how long it will take us to post - at this moment we're about 2/3 of the way through this first arc, and integrating the co-written parts into a cohesive whole (that's my job) takes a bit of time. But we solemnly swear to keep at it for as long as we possibly can. ;-)

The title of the AU, Furious Angels, is the name of a song by Rob Dougan. An instrumental version featured on the _Matrix Reloaded_ soundtrack, but we're using the version with lyrics, which comes off a bit differently. (Look it up on Youtube, it's there.) This song also provided the lyrics that title the first chapter.

* * *

**Furious Angels I: Nameless Here Forevermore**

**Chapter 01: I've Got No Options Left**

* * *

"Watari!"

One after another, each monitor snapped to the deleted data message. Watari was gone. One down...

Perched in his chair in front of the bank of monitors, L whirled, quickly glancing over the room. His voice was sharp, mouth tight, the spoon he'd been stirring his coffee with dangling forgotten from his fingers. "Where is the Shinigami?"

"Come to think of it -"

"Nowhere!"

"What's the meaning of -"

Standing in the red glare of the emergency lighting, watching as the screens went blank, Yagami Light remained silent. Waiting.

Everything was proceeding exactly as Kira had planned.

"Everyone..." Still speaking swiftly, L drew himself up a little. "The Shiniga-"

Not swiftly enough. The syllable stuck in L's throat, his wide eyes going just a little wider.

Light already knew what was going to happen. He _knew_, and in that sudden silencing of L's voice, still felt like the floor had dropped out from under him.

Time seemed to slow. Light saw the spoon fall from L's hand, the silver glinting in the contrasting cool glow of monitors and dim red illumination, but he did not hear it land. He saw the chair start to tip, saw L slipping sideways - all of it happening so gradually that every detail burned itself into his mind, the images playing back like reflections echoed between mirrors into infinity - and something seized up in his chest like the heart attack that had just cut short L's life.

Light moved without thinking. His arms were around L in an instant; they hit the floor together, adrenaline spurring Light to push himself up even though some part of his mind knew there should be pain with the movement. Distantly, he could hear Matsuda yelling - but there was no room in this moment for anyone else. All he could see was L.

L's eyes - grey eyes, too wide, staring up at Light - were still aware. In that instant, Light knew that he had won. Triumph swelled in the pit of his stomach, a bloom of heat that spread up through his chest and blossomed on his face as a broad smirk. He saw himself reflected in the eyes of his enemy, the grinning god of a new world.

There was barely time for a moment of shock at the confirmation. Unable to focus any longer, L let his eyes close, and went slack and still in his opponent's arms. His startled expression faded, and a soft, warm breath ghosted across Light's face, just once.

It seemed to suck the heat from Light's body.

"Oi, Ryuuzaki?"

Light had never heard his own voice tremble so badly, and a sudden fear gripped him. This... this was wrong. Too easy. He took L by the shoulders and shook him. "What's the matter? Get a hold of yourself!"

Some part of Light's mind registered his father's voice, but he couldn't process the words. The air seemed heavy, pressing in on him, smothering and crushing him. And suddenly he was screaming - a raw, primal cry of loss and terror that ripped from him in waves, rising and falling in pitch but not actually stopping even when instinct forced him to inhale.

"Calm down, Light!"

Light's head snapped up; the motion made L's head loll back, slack against his arm. "Fuck!" he swore, the exclamation tearing at his already raw throat and bringing a wet sting to his eyes. "Where's that Shinigami? Show yourself!"

But Rem was already gone...

"We- we're all going to be killed!" It was Matsuda's voice this time, panic-stricken, but Light didn't even look at him. He cast about for Rem again, desperate for the chance to change what had already come to pass.

This couldn't be real. It had been too easy. L had known all along, hadn't he? And yet he'd done nothing to save himself. Why hadn't he done something?

The others were shouting around him. Aizawa had taken up the call to find the Shinigami, who surely would know more than they did, if nothing else. He and Matsuda scrambled for the door, with Mogi close on their heels. Yagami Soichiro stayed, hovering near his son, torn between the task at hand and the instinct to protect his offspring in some way.

Light had gone utterly silent. He was staring, wide-eyed, his gaze fixed on L's lifeless, strangely peaceful face. A strangled sound started at the back of his throat; little by little, it built up into a low keening, then erupted as yet another shriek, this one so high-pitched that it cracked before it reached its peak and tapered into wrenching sobs. Abruptly he pulled his hands away, almost as if L's still body had wounded him, and he looked at them in abject horror for a moment, gasping and choking incoherently.

"Light!" Soichiro reached for his son, but Light screamed again and slapped his hand away.

"Ryuuzaki! _L_!" Nearly hysterical now, Light pressed his hands to L's chest and began a series of compressions, falling automatically into the CPR routine he'd long ago committed to memory - thirty compressions, then two breaths lasting one second each, pausing to check for signs of life before repeating the process. The tears that streamed down his cheeks dripped from his chin and soaked into L's white shirt, lost in fabric still damp from the storm that raged outside. Light didn't even realize that he was crying.

Soichiro had seen such hopeless desperation before, and it was rarely successful - but there was still a chance. He left only to step outside to call an ambulance. He shut down the alarm when he returned, and the room fell silent, but for Light's whispers of effort.

Light did not know how many times he counted from one to thirty; time only flowed as far as that number, and then it skipped a beat and began all over again. He couldn't escape the horrible, repeating nightmare of compressions and rescue breathing and checking for a pulse and not finding one. The tears kept streaming down his face, and he continued to force air into L's lungs and blood through his veins. His field of vision grew dark around the edges as he forgot even to breathe for himself, and the world contracted into a frigid, silent sphere that was only large enough for him and the rhythm of compressions and breaths.

And finally, there was a single, strained cry. Light became aware of movement, the body beneath his hands giving a violent spasm.

Light inhaled, his first deep breath in what felt like hours, and L's face swam into focus, mere inches away. His lips and skin were blue-tinged, but his eyes were opened wide.

L's heart was beating. And even that was overshadowed by the ragged sound of him drawing air into his lungs on his own.

A gagging sob tore itself from Light's chest, and he collapsed forward against L, apologizing over and over again in a barely-coherent stream of desperate words.

L made another sound between gasping breaths - almost a whimper - his brow furrowed in clear pain despite how wide his eyes opened. His back arched for a moment, as though he was attempting to struggle, but he almost immediately collapsed helplessly again. Breathing alone seemed to take all of his strength.

There were more sounds around them now, voices and footsteps and the rattle of a gurney down the hall - but it wasn't until the paramedics hauled him bodily away from L that Light heard any of it. He kicked and thrashed and screamed and sobbed, hysterical like a child at the loss of contact. It took all four remaining members of the Task Force to restrain him so that one of the paramedics could leave L's side long enough to administer a fast-acting sedative.

Light's father sat with him as the paramedics tended to L, holding his son in a tight one-armed embrace. Soichiro tried to turn Light's face against his shoulder, but even then, the young man refused to look anywhere but at L. It was only when his heaving sobs turned to retching, and then to vomiting - it seemed that the sedative did not sit well with him - that he at last looked away.

A terrible weight settled over Light then, and with the drug, exhaustion finally overtook him. Light sank into darkness, listening to the steady beep of the monitor that marked his friend's heartbeat.

* * *

L did not like hospitals. In his experience, they never meant anything good.

It took a long time before he could piece together what had happened, between his own memory and what those around him said. It wasn't that his memory was lacking - rather, it was all too clear, and the recollection of just what had happened was... distracting.

He remembered the sudden pain in his chest, and falling, and Light catching him, holding him, looking down at him...

He remembered his friend's mouth twisting cruelly, triumphantly, the red emergency lighting all too appropriate as it gleamed in the younger man's eyes. He remembered realizing that the disappointment lay not in losing, but in being unable to keep playing.

He remembered darkness that he'd never expected to surface from again.

The problem was that his awareness had not ceased. He remembered dark and silence and weirdly close emptiness and a complete disconnect from the sensation of the passage of time.

And that memory was terrifying.

L wasn't sure how many thousands of years had passed before that darkness changed. But it had changed at last, pierced by a sudden pain, and the feeling-sound of a brief, brittle-seeming snap. There had been motion then, too - a repetition that seemed to stab through his chest with each iteration.

He remembered a second snap, and an increase in the pain, but pain was preferable to the nothing in which he'd been trapped. And then L had found that if he counted, each jab of pain brought something new with it: time.

L had desperately clung to that realization, counting each agonizing shift: twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty -

He remembered the breathless dark horror when the repetitions had ceased. He'd wanted to scream more than he ever had in his life, and he hadn't the breath to do so.

And then breath had been given to him.

He'd still been unable to scream, unable to force the necessary air out. But then the pain had risen once more, regular and sharp, and he'd again desperately grasped at counting - and all at once he'd realized what was happening.

Hearing had returned first, and it had struck him that he wasn't the only one counting. He'd heard whispers, sobs, a voice keeping count exactly as he was. A sudden shift in perception - the return of a sense of what lay outside of him - came next, and was welcome, despite the blinding pain that accompanied it. And then his heart had begun to beat again, and between the nauseating pain and the fact that Light seemed to have collapsed partly over him, he'd become unable to think so clearly.

He remembered Light's voice, babbling inconceivable apologies over and over. He remembered struggling to breathe, trying to cry out - had he? - and being unable to quite control his movements at first. There had been an inexplicable taste of apples...

After that, there had been a rush of medical personnel and a vaguely recalled ambulance ride to the hospital. Important things were all right - his pupils contracted the right way (relatively speaking) when the paramedics shone a light into them, and his head didn't hurt unduly, and he knew the date (he'd asked what time it was first, just to be certain). He knew that his name was Ryuuzaki - it was lucky that he'd heard Mogi give _that_ alias. His breathing was all right; he'd rejected the sterile oxygen mask as soon as he could.

But those were the only things he'd responded to. He'd had to claim that he only wanted to rest.

An electronic monitor next to the bed told him that his heart had finally slowed to a more reasonable rate - it seemed to have been trying to make up for lost time, for the first half hour or so.

A few of his ribs were fractured, but that was common with CPR, the attendant medical staff had said. They'd given him something for the pain and told him that his friend had saved his life. It was a rare thing - something wonderful to be celebrated.

His friend. L's grip on the bed-sheets had tightened as they'd said it, even as he'd agreed. He'd reassured the nurses and doctors that as soon as he was discharged he'd be seeing his (non-existent) private doctor, so as to determine the source of the incident - as no one that examined him could find any obvious physical problems. He suffered disapproval for his pallor and clear sleep deprivation, but his bloodwork appeared normal enough, if slightly high in sugar. There was nothing that should have resulted in cardiac arrest.

It was only a matter of time before someone on the staff would think of Kira, L was certain. It would be best to leave as quickly as possible, but "as quickly as possible" seemed to involve waiting until morning at least. L considered hiring his own medical personnel for Headquarters, so as to avoid the chance of involving a public hospital in the future, but it seemed rather pointless just now.

They'd been unable to do anything for Watari, he'd been told when he'd asked - the only question he'd asked. It was the answer he'd expected.

He'd heard Soichiro reassuring the staff over and over that no, neither of the young men were on any sort of drugs, but L wasn't sure if the doctors believed it. The man had finally been ushered out of the room for the night.

One room...

It was long into the night now, going on gray rainy dawn outside, and L still refused to close his eyes and refused any kind of sedative. At least they didn't blame him, yet. He'd never liked sleep to begin with - always dreamed things that didn't make sense, or felt that he was missing something - and now he couldn't shake the feeling that if he slept he'd only wake in the timeless dark again. Better to sit in the bed, watching the second hand sweep around the clock on the far wall of the room.

He couldn't even curl on his side or draw his knees up the way he wanted; his ribs hurt too much for that, even with the painkillers. At least the fractured bones would heal relatively quickly... but at present, it meant that all he could do was sit in the inclined bed like a broken doll.

The clock was a constant. He could watch time passing, unhurried and comforting. He could hear and feel his breathing and the beat of his heart, the latter measured in quiet pings by the device next to the bed. None of it erased the memory of horrifying nothing he'd experienced, but each beep, each second, pushed it a little further into the past.

He again remembered falling, and Light catching him, and looking down at him, and the smirk that twisted his lips...

L closed his eyes for a moment, and remembered when Light's first dose of sedative had worn off. Mogi had left but Soichiro had still been present, and he had restrained his son while the nurses had buckled down his arms to keep him from harming himself in his hysteria. L had simply lain still and watched as Light was sedated again, the younger man demanding to be released, screaming for Ryuuzaki - by what grace he'd not called out more accurately, L couldn't guess. Before long, Light had passed out again, and Soichiro - looking as haggard as when he'd been hospitalized himself - had put forth the notion that his son was at least as traumatized by the incident as Ryuuzaki himself. L had only looked away again.

The second time the sedative had worn off, L had again lain still, his bed inclined by that point, and merely listened as Light struggled and sobbed for him until the nurses came to sedate him again. The bedside curtains were drawn enough that Light couldn't see him then, though they were cleared back now. The hospital personnel were so helpful.

L's thoughts circled back again to that would-be final smirk.

It hurt to think about. All of it.

It hurt worse that Watari was indisputably gone. L had no one to go to, now, and thought it unlikely that he ever would again. It seemed impossible that anyone would ever know him as well, and he'd not even realized such in time to ever tell Watari how much it was appreciated.

There was a slight sound of movement, a rasping of material, off to L's right. Light's sedative must have worn off again. L didn't look, not even at the low, rough groan that followed. At least the younger man certainly seemed more in command of himself, this time, than he had a few hours ago. Not so loud.

The dim sounds of stirring abruptly ceased, and L glanced over to the other bed to see Light staring at him.

L simply stared back for a few moments, expressionless, too tired to do much else. His dry lips finally parted, though, and he forced through the first word that came to mind, his voice weak and scratchy in his own ears.

"Morning."

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**Disclaimer: **Death Note (manga, animation, novels, etc.), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Taugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata/SHUEISHA Inc./Madhouse/DNDP/VAP, and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	2. My Plans Didn't Work Out Like I Thought

**Authors' Note:** The song lyrics that title this chapter are from _The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game. _We much prefer the version by Massive Attack (featuring Tracey Thorn) as appeared on the soundtrack album of _Batman Forever_.

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**Furious Angels I: Nameless Here Forevermore**

**Chapter 02: My Plans Didn't Work Out Like I Thought**

* * *

It took Light what felt like a long time, upon waking, to remember anything of what had happened; his thoughts seemed to move much slower than normal. Eventually it occurred to him that he must still be feeling the effects of sedation. His mouth was very dry, and his eyes itched. When he reached up to scrub the heel of one hand over his face, he found that his body responded sluggishly, and that his cheeks seemed to be crusted with dried salt.

He could remember being brought to the hospital, at least, though the memories were disjointed and unclear. His father and Mogi had come along as well, leaving Aizawa and Matsuda at headquarters. Light thought there had been something important that they were supposed to be doing there, but couldn't quite place what it might be.

There was a persistent ache in his arms and chest and back, the twinge of muscle strain, but it paled in comparison to the horrible sense of anxiety he felt. Concentrating on the feeling, even without knowing exactly what it was, made his too-empty stomach tighten dangerously.

He couldn't shake the suspicion that something awful had happened...

Taking a deep breath, Light forced his sleep-gummed eyes open. The only thing he could see at first was his own hand, the digits slightly curled, and an indistinct expanse of white pillowcase and dim hospital wall beyond that.

He flexed his fingers, finding them stiff and a bit painful. There was a line of bruising around his wrist, about twice as thick as the band of a watch - had there been something strapped to his arm? Frowning, Light shifted his head a little, and his eyes focused on the safety rail of the hospital bed. There were soft cloth restraints attached to the metal frame.

Light groaned softly. His throat was very raw, and trying to swallow with no saliva in his mouth only made it worse.

There was a table within arm's reach of the bed, and a small, covered plastic pitcher and Styrofoam cups thereon. He started to push himself up on his right arm in an attempt to reach, but the effort made his head swim. He eased himself down again with a sharp, explosive sigh, and immediately regretted it when it set his throat burning.

It seemed strange that no one was there to help him or tell him what was going on. He couldn't see a call button within reach, so he started to roll himself over, carefully, to look for one on the other side of the bed. He had to shut his eyes to do it; the room spun dangerously when he moved too much, which he assumed to be an aftereffect of the sedative. He succeeded in turning onto his left side, and cautiously eased himself up onto his elbow before he opened his eyes.

There, sitting up in a bed against the opposite wall, his face framed by messy dark hair and the first glow of pre-dawn light creeping past the neutral curtains beyond him, was L. Watching - no, staring at him. His face was so expressionless that he might seem disinterested, but he was staring nevertheless.

Light thought that he should not have been glad to see L alive. He knew what this meant - it was over. He had lost. Now that L knew the truth - now that he had no choice but to _acknowledge_ the truth - Kira was doomed, no matter how little evidence there was. If he could not be tried legally, he would be made to disappear. He knew from past experience that L was willing to let the end justify the means if the situation was grave enough.

Light should not have been glad, and yet he was... unspeakably, unbearably so.

And then L spoke. "Morning."

For some reason the bland delivery was a blow crueler to Light than any accusation could have been. For a moment, Light could almost believe that the previous night was nothing but a horrific dream... except that the aches of muscles held tense for too long, to say nothing of the surroundings, said otherwise. Not to mention the strangely cold feeling in his chest...

He remembered the hurt, sad look he'd seen in L's wide gray eyes - the look of a man who had foreseen his own death and chosen, for whatever reason, not to try to prevent it.

Wordlessly, Light turned and pushed himself up on his hands. He had to stop and rest once he was up on one hip, still reeling from the sedative - but as soon as his vision cleared, he shifted and slid his legs through the gap in the guard rail, brushing aside the thin blankets.

The room was cold; Light gasped when his bare feet touched the tiled floor, but he didn't stop. He closed the distance between his bed and L's in a stumble, and crumpled against the metal railing, and could no longer hold back the emotions that had forced him to move.

"I'm so-I'm sorry!" he sobbed, his grief pulling the words from him in short, strangled bursts that made his throat burn until he nearly gagged. Light's whole body sagged like a broken thing, held upright only by his white-knuckled grip on the rails. He choked out the phrase over and over, reciting it like a mantra, as if by hearing it repeatedly L would somehow be made to believe it.

Still unmoving, L watched for a few minutes as Light clung to the bed's railing and poured out his apology. So this was Kira. It slowly sank in on L that what he was seeing was not a boy trapped and terrified by his own power, as it might appear at first. It certainly wasn't an innocent shouldering blame and apologizing for events not of his doing, as an outsider might assume. If anything, it struck L as being close to the remorse of a child that had broken a favorite toy in a fit of anger, begging that it be fixed. It was far more messy and pathetic than any act Light had pulled thus far.

Despite the clear benefits should L die, Kira had recanted and _saved_ him.

There were two possible reasons for this, L decided. Light's name was most certainly not cleared this way; rather, it was confirmed that he was Kira, but only to L, and there was still no connecting physical evidence. But there could be some greater reason for attempting to secure L's trust in this way - he simply didn't know what it was.

L's mouth drew into a thin line. He disliked being played, and it disgusted him that Light might go to these lengths, killing Watari and taking the chance that he might fail to resurrect L. At least he'd proven that it was possible to counteract the power of the Death Note; that was valuable information. But if this were another ploy, L knew that he'd have to go along with it, in order to try to decipher the scheme before it was too late. He couldn't yet imagine what such a game would yield Kira; it was counterproductive to the security he'd have should L die.

The other option was, of course, that Light was finally speaking truth. There was obvious evidence to back up Light's possible sincerity: his night-long hysteria as well as the fact that L was alive. Somehow, however, that seemed far less likely to L.

L was suddenly quite tired of this game - but there was no choice, was there?

For long minutes, the only sounds in the room were the regular tones of the electronic monitor and Light's broken, wretched sobbing. There was no dignity in the young man's grief - his tears did not fall silently or gracefully. He cried into the blankets, muffling the sounds only by coincidence as he pulled handfuls of the bedding closer to himself, desperate for something to hang onto, clutching at L's legs through the cloth without finding purchase. The stainless steel railing dug painfully into his ribs.

Light could still hear himself trying to speak, but it was like listening to someone else's voice - he knew that the words were his only because of how much it hurt his throat to force them out. He kept repeating the same clipped phrases over and over - he was sorry, he hadn't meant for it to happen that way, oh god he was so sorry and if he'd only known -

The whisper of fingers against his hair was so subtle that Light almost didn't realize what it was - but he went absolutely still the instant his mind registered it, his breath catching audibly. It was almost a relief, even if that slight touch of L's hand on his head was the only absolution he would be granted.

The heart-rate monitor gave L away, its beeping sounds coming closer together. A nurse would probably come in soon to see what the matter was. There was no time to waste.

So he threaded his fingers more solidly into Light's hair, and stroked his head, and stared past him to the floor over the younger man's shoulder. It was all he could bring himself to do to play along; he only wanted Light to stop this idiotic display, really. Besides, it was better for anyone observing to see friends rather than opponents, here.

Unfortunately, the action only seemed to make it worse. Light made a soft, strangely high-pitched keening sound, breaking into fresh, wordless sobs and groping blindly against L's torso with one hand. L flinched and gritted his teeth - Light's hand fell on the fractured ribs more than once, and L would have cried out, if not for the painkillers' help. But the detective recognized what was happening when Light's hand lay flat over L's heart.

L silently breathed as deeply as he dared, drawing in air until it hurt, trying to calm himself now; he let his hand slide down to lay on Light's shoulder. Light's sobbing was now only muffled because he'd buried his face in the crook of his own arm.

L had never thought he'd see calm, composed Yagami Light reduced, though whatever means, to the emotional teenager he tried so hard not to be. Not to this extent. It had the same feel of reality to it as all but the first several days of Light's solitary incarceration, and that disturbed L more thoroughly than he'd like.

The door opened abruptly just as L's heart monitor began to slow. He only watched as a nurse entered, barely making eye contact - but Light didn't seem to acknowledge the woman's presence at all, not even when she began to address him. Light simply stayed where he was, blind and deaf to the nurse's alternating sympathetic and admonishing words: he must be very distraught, of course, but Ryuuzaki-san needed to rest, and could he please get back in bed?

She was growing distressed herself at her inability to get a reaction from Light, casting L several apologetic looks. After a minute or so, L simply stared back at her. It was enough to prompt the woman to attempt to make Light more comfortable instead.

It wasn't until something bumped the backs of his legs that Light realized that he was being eased into a chair. He finally relented, but the instant he tried to relax his knees, his legs gave out entirely and dumped him into the chair quite jarringly. The nurse seemed satisfied enough with the result, however, and left again, nodding to L on her way out.

Light curled forward to press his face against the cool metal safety bars of L's bed - the nurse had failed to lower them - and held tight to L's gown with one hand, even as he wiped his streaming eyes and nose with the other.

L's hand still lay listlessly on the younger man's shoulder. Gazing indirectly at his companion's face through the bars, L wondered if Light had perhaps swapped personalities again. It would have easily explained the severity of his reaction. L hadn't thought that Light was capable of keeping up an act of such debilitating caliber for so long; he was generally too prideful for that.

There was a table to the far side of L's bed, next to the windows. L reached with his free hand - grimacing at the way the motion stretched his chest - and picked up the small box of tissues there between thumb and forefinger, and brought it over and tapped Light on the arm with it.

Light startled a bit and raised his head fractionally, brown eyes lifting to L's face just as L's lips and tongue began to form a syllable.

But L stopped himself, staring for a moment more before speaking. "What shall I call you now?" His voice took on a slight edge, the longer he spoke, low and scratchy as it was. "Yagami? Kira?" The corners of his mouth twitched downward. "Savior?"

Light realized when L hesitated what he had been about to say, and the fact that L stopped himself seemed physically painful. Being called "Light-kun" had been a mild annoyance, but he suddenly found himself craving the familiarity.

But before Light could respond, there was a commotion in the hallway, the voices muffled but loud enough to be clear. "Miss? Miss! Visiting hours don't start for another hour and a half!"

There was a response, and there was no mistaking the cadence of Amane Misa's voice, particularly not with her habit of referring to herself in the third person.

Roused to action by the impending arrival of the young woman, Light quickly removed his hand from L's chest, snatched a tissue from the box, swiped it across his cheeks, and blew his nose. L glanced up at the door and withdrew his hand from Light's shoulder just in time.

Light was just starting to straighten into a proper sitting position when door burst open. Misa forced her way in like a technicolor hurricane, her gaze drawn magnetically to Light, as though L didn't even exist. She swooped down on the object of her affections like some strange bird of prey, babbling his name.

Behind her loomed Ryuuk, who raised a hand in greeting - but he was eclipsed by the same attendant nurse, who was again upset. "It's all right, ma'am," Light said quickly, successfully waving the woman away.

Light thought he saw Ryuuk's usual grin falter into something else when he looked over at L, but Misa was dragging on his shoulders, and instinctively Light looked down at her when she addressed him.

Her words tumbled over bright lips. "Oh Light what happened to you! Mattsu called to tell Misa you were in the hospital, why didn't anyone call sooner?" She didn't wait for an answer from him, however - she immediately looked up at L on the bed. "You, what did you d-"

Her eyes went wide, mouth going slack as she stared at L, and she fell into an abrupt and uncharacteristic silence. Light's first thought was that something had happened to L, but a quick sideways glance revealed the haggard-looking young man no worse off than he had been moments before.

Misa blinked twice at L, eyes still wide; he simply stared back, equally mute, before looking off to the window - the nurse had drawn the curtain back, revealing a park outside, several stories down. He could see the building that passed for home in the near distance, a little taller than a few of the buildings between.

Of course Misa was gawking; she knew he was supposed to be dead, didn't she. L settled against the raised back of the bed so as to avoid slouching and making his ribs hurt any worse than they already did. He wondered how much longer the painkillers were supposed to last - they seemed to be fading a little. Or perhaps it was simply the stress of the situation dulling their effect.

Confused, and wanting nothing to do with a social situation at all at the moment, Light set his hands on Misa's shoulders and pushed her back so that he could focus on her face.

"What?" he demanded, inwardly wincing at the raw, sticky quality of his own voice. There was no point in trying to pretend he hadn't just been crying like a child; even Misa would see through such a weak charade. Light tried to clear his throat, hoping to catch Ryuuk's attention with the gesture, but the Shinigami was staring raptly at L. Light gave Misa's shoulder a squeeze and tried again. "What's wrong, Misa?"

Light's hands on her shoulders finally caught Misa's attention enough to prompt her to speak. "What's wrong," she echoed numbly, before turning her attention away from L and seeming to collect herself. "What's wrong! Light, you've been here all night and nobody told me until this morning! What happened? Why are you in the hospital?" She tightened her embrace again, nearly pulling Light from his chair. "You've been crying and you're asking _Misa_ what's wrong!" She seemed to be tearing up herself.

Light kept his eyes carefully fixed on Misa, but his peripheral vision caught the movement of L turning away slightly, and again something deep in his chest tightened painfully in response. He wanted to scream at Misa for her stupidity, tell her to just get the hell out. If she hadn't shown up just then, he could've... L might have...

Drawing in a trembling breath, Light pushed his emotions aside, allowing his expression to soften. The weariness that showed through was genuine, and he leaned against Misa a bit, bringing one arm up around her slender shoulders for a few moments.

"I'm fine," Light assured her, pulling away so that he could sit up straight in his chair. He was exhausted, but he thought that perhaps the effects of the sedation had worn off at last. Light brushed his free hand over his temple, smoothing his disheveled bangs more or less into place. Of course, he was aware that he looked far from "fine" - but aside from the ache of overused muscles in his arms and back, there was nothing physically wrong with him.

"Could you get me some water?" he asked Misa, indicating the cups and pitcher on the far side of his empty hospital bed. Warm eyes darted aside, momentarily shamed. "...And some for Ryuuzaki, too."

Light waited for Misa to do as he requested before he continued, sipping at the room-temperature water and wincing a little with the effort of swallowing. His gaze briefly fell to Ryuuk, who had finally stopped hovering - literally - in the doorway, and was now perched on the vacant chair at the foot of L's bed. The Shinigami was peering at L with a grin that seemed even wider and toothier than usual.

"I'm sorry I didn't call," Light began, turning the white Styrofoam cup in his hands and staring down into its contents. "There was an incident at Headquarters - and as you know, cell phones don't work inside the building." Or they weren't supposed to, anyway. There were clear exceptions.

He considered his next words carefully, acutely aware of L's silent presence just an arm's-length away. "Ryuuzaki suffered a heart attack and collapsed. I... resuscitated him."

In the silence that followed the statement, Light felt Ryuuk's wall-eyed stare boring into him. Slowly the Shinigami's raspy chuckle filled the room, a sound like sandpaper on gravel. Light shut his eyes, trying to will the sound to stop - he was getting a sinus headache from having spent so much time crying recently - and so he missed the curious glance, perfectly visible to L in the window's reflection, that Misa gave the Shinigami.

"What I'm saying," Light added, more for his own certainty than to clarify for Misa, "is that Kira tried to kill Ryuuzaki - no." Light's mouth drew into a tight, worried line. He suddenly couldn't seem to puzzle out his own feelings - couldn't differentiate where Kira ended and Yagami Light began. It was troubling. "I... suppose Kira succeeded," he ventured, "but... I couldn't... I..."

Finally understanding, Misa's hand began to move toward the coffin-shaped purse slung over her shoulder. She didn't realize that Ryuuzaki had turned his head to watch her until Light's words began to fail and Ryuuzaki interrupted.

"Just stop it," L whispered, head bowed far enough that his unruly hair hid his eyes. "Stop pretending. Both of you. There's no point."

A resounding silence followed, broken only by the soft, regular beeping of the monitor L was connected to. "Close the door," he finally murmured - but had to repeat the instruction, raising his voice a little. "Misa. Please, close the door."

Even Ryuuk fell quiet, waiting expectantly to see in which direction the situation would turn.

Misa glanced at Light, waiting for him to nod before getting to her feet and looking back again before she actually reached the door, which she quietly closed and locked. Light waited until he heard the click of the locking mechanism before he turned back to L.

Misa turned and stood where she was, the door at her back, silver jewelry gently jingling as she moved, and only stared down at her slightly in-turned Mary Janes. She had the distinct impression that she was about to be given a lecture, and clutched her slim purse in front of her as though to ward off Ryuuzaki's inevitable anger.

L's face was cast in shadow, veiled by black hair so that Light could see little of his expression - only the thin scowl of his mouth. In the span of seconds before L spoke again, Light was torn between relief and anxiety, wondering what fate would be pronounced.

L finally lifted the water that Misa had brought him from the bedside stand where he'd left it, and took a few swallows before speaking again. "What are you waiting for?" He asked quietly, still staring at the girl - or at her feet, actually, as lifting his head didn't really seem necessary, and that was where she was looking. "I know how it works. I'm sure you have at least paper from your notebook with you. Get it over with. Do what the real Kira couldn't. You're not going to be safe if you don't, and you know that." L paused, his scowl losing some of its stone intensity. "Just... it doesn't have to be a heart attack, does it? That really hurt."

Light blinked and sucked in a breath, his gaze darting from L to Misa and back. What the hell was L _doing_, trying to provoke her into using her Death Note in a public place like this? Were there cameras in the room, recording this entire conversation? He knew L wanted solid proof of Kira's method of killing...

A thrill of panic contracted the muscles across Light's chest, making it almost painful to breathe for a moment - before he realized that Misa wasn't responding. She wasn't even looking at L. Why wasn't she looking at him? She'd already made the eye deal with Ryuuk...

Misa kept staring at her shoes. "I can't," she whispered.

L drew himself upright, away from the back of the bed, though his arms still hung limply at his sides. "Why can't you?" he asked, raising his head enough to stare blankly at her face. He was certain that Misa was the second Kira; she only needed to know his face in order to kill, unless something had changed.

Misa looked up at him again just to be sure, though she had to crane her neck to see around Ryuuk, at which L's eyes narrowed slightly in confusion.

"I don't know your real name," she explained.

It didn't matter that at this point Light didn't want her to write L's name in her Death Note; the fact that she was doing absolutely nothing just didn't make any _sense_. "But you made the _deal!_" he blurted out, looking accusingly at Ryuuk for an instant...

L seemed completely unphased despite drawing the immediate connection from Light's outburst. It wasn't as though it mattered just now, however. L grunted, taking another drink of water before speaking to Misa again. "Mmm. L, A, W..."

Light opened his mouth to say something, some angry and utterly useless remark to the effect that L ought to take this more seriously, but what came out as L spelled was a shout of alarm. He was on his feet in a split second, launching himself halfway onto the hospital bed with such ferocity that Ryuuk startled and actually toppled off his perch, sending the chair clattering to the ground just short of where Misa stood. The cup of water tumbled from L's hand and over the far side of the bed. Light crouched on one shin, left leg straining off the edge of the bed, the railing pressing hard into his groin, both hands suddenly wrapped around L's throat.

* * *

**Disclaimer: **Death Note (manga, animation, novels, etc.), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Taugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata/SHUEISHA Inc./Madhouse/DNDP/VAP, and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	3. In The End, You're Just Too Close

**Authors' Note:** The title for this chapter is a line from the song _Your Hands Around My Throat_ by Death In Vegas, as appears on the _Animatrix _soundtrack.

* * *

**Furious Angels I: Nameless Here Forevermore**

**Chapter 03: In The End, You're Just Too Close**

* * *

Light tightened his grip until he could see pale skin bruising beneath his thumbs - until he was absolutely certain that L would be unable to utter another syllable. L neither fought nor cried out - his head only lolled back, strangely listless but for a slight tension to his expression. His eyes closed, and he seemed to hang from Light's hands, puppet-limp.

"Get _out_!" Light bellowed at Misa, and when there was no sudden clatter of shoes and jewelry, he whipped his head around and repeated the order, teeth bared, beads of sweat standing out on his face. "Get the hell out, _both of you!_"

Misa stared in shock, eyes tearing up. Then there was the rattle of her fumbling at the door's lock, and then a soft shift in air pressure as the door opened, accompanied by swift footsteps before the door closed again.

Light could hear only his own breath coming in great, wheezing gasps as he panted through clenched teeth; he couldn't seem to get enough air, as if he were the one being choked. His eyes were painfully wide now, and stayed fixed on L's face even as it grew more ashen.

Gradually, Light became aware of himself again. There was a sharp, rhythmic electronic wail suddenly echoing in his ears, and a weak fluttering sensation like a small animal struggling against his palms. He blinked, and L's face swam into focus, his eyes closed, but... not entirely peaceful. For a few heartbeats Light only stared at L, trying to find some meaning in the way that his fingers were wrapped around that pale throat. There were red-purple bruises blossoming beneath the pads of his thumbs.

Light started to shift his grip to get a better look at the ugly blotches - and then all at once he let go, stumbling off onto unsteady feet. L fell listlessly back against the angled bed, breathing deeply but managing not to outright gasp.

Time slammed back into place all at once as Light became cognizant of what had just happened. He stared at the monitor displaying L's vitals, watching as the numbers began to normalize again, the alarms falling silent.

Strangely calm, Light found the intercom and pressed the call button, waiting for the voice on the other end to prompt him to speak. The woman who addressed him had a rich, maternal-sounding voice. Light explained to her that his girlfriend and Ryuuzaki had gotten into an argument, and that Misa had already left. The nurse seemed to accept the explanation.

Light stood for long moments with his back to L, his head bowed slightly. His arms rested slack at his sides at first - then his hands balled into fists, shaking where they pressed against the cloth of the pajama bottoms his father had managed to locate for him. He had to say something. If he didn't, L would make some sarcastic remark about what an inventive way to preserve his life that had been, or would call him Kira...

He tried to look over his shoulder at L, but perhaps he turned too abruptly. Head spinning, he dodged aside to crumple over a wastebasket, noisily losing the little he'd had to drink. All he could think was that he'd never allow himself to be given sedatives again.

"I'd like to leave," L said quietly. He shifted uncomfortably under the thin blanket that covered his legs, trying to slowly draw his knees up. It must have hurt, but the habit seemed deeply ingrained. Either that, or he felt that the need to think better outweighed the pain. "I believe your father was handling the arrangements here," he went on, his voice a little strained. "We'll have to contact him. I don't want to be away from the case any longer than necessary."

After a few beats of silence L added, "I could do with some cake. And tea. Should have asked Misa to fetch some..."

The effort of being sick left Light feeling weak and feverish, but L's words were maddening. "You _idiot_," he choked out. "_What_ case? You've won, don't you see that?" He pulled himself up on the safety bar of his own hospital bed, leaning back against it for support as he turned to face L. His foot pressed down on something that gave way with a soft crunch, and when he looked to see what it was, Light realized it was his cup - he couldn't remember dropping it, but there was an arc of spilled water across the tile.

L fell silent, staring blankly into his lap. He tried to take a deep breath, but having his knees drawn up even partway made for extra pressure on his ribs, and he couldn't breathe deeply without allowing his legs to slide straight again.

"_I've_ won?" The detective at last echoed softly. The person he'd been closest to in the world was dead, and all their precautions for the team's safety were meaningless thanks to their bringing the Shinigami into their headquarters (if nothing else). The case's database was wiped - he'd never expected to outlive that himself, and it would take considerable skill to retrieve any data at all. He'd no way of ensuring that the killings would stop, with the way that the Kira abilities - _notebooks_, of all things - jumped from person to person. Even a captured suspect could become truly innocent if they simply gave up ownership of their Note.

The problem was that there simply wasn't anything that L could _do_. The case was not solved. There was no solution, short of the destruction of all murder notebooks - including those that _might_ ever reach the human world, which simply wasn't possible, so far as he knew. He couldn't comprehend how he could be considered to have won.

Light brought a shaking hand up and rubbed at his mouth, still breathing hard. This was... not what he'd planned. "Now that you know," he began, lifting his gaze to L's face and swallowing reflexively, "what are you going to do with me?" Light neither wanted to be executed, nor spend the rest of his life imprisoned - and while there was as yet no physical proof of Kira, L _knew_. The question was whether L was really dedicated enough to the law to wait until he could get a fair conviction for Light and Misa... or whether they would simply disappear.

L raised his eyes, turning his head slightly, and found himself meeting the other man's gaze, and stared. Stared not at the floor, not out the window, not over the other's shoulder - he stared directly into Yagami Light's face for the first time since his heart had stopped and he'd closed his eyes the evening before. The seconds ticked by and he stared without blinking, and Light's eyes did not narrow and gleam, and Light's lips did not draw back into a cruel smirk.

"I don't know anything," L whispered, before looking away again, staring into the air between them. "One-hundred percent and zero percent."

L chewed on his lower lip for a moment before finally lifting his hand to worry at the tip of his thumb with his teeth, gaze turning inward as he considered the information. "You resuscitated me. I can understand why my death would be to your advantage, but what do you intend to accomplish by keeping me alive?" There was no harm in simply asking; Light would be perfectly aware of L's thought processes at this point.

Light didn't answer immediately. Turning, he lowered the safety rails on his bed and sat down, then reached for the water and poured himself another cup. He drank slowly, grimacing at the lingering taste of bile in his throat.

"I don't know," he finally admitted, setting the cup aside and clasping his hands in his lap. "I just... I wasn't thinking." Curling his right hand into a loose fist, Light wrapped his left around it, his expression thoughtful. "I've never lost a friend before. I didn't realize it would hurt so much."

"How naive of you," L muttered tightly, unable to entirely keep the skepticism out of his flat voice. He was alive because of Kira's _whim_? Because they were _friends_?

But even as he spoke, it occurred to L that perhaps some of Light's reasoning really might be that simple. Unlike L, Light hadn't lived with the knowledge of loss all his life.

Loss that he now had to face again, L thought bitterly, thinking of Watari.

The heart monitor's beeping picked up pace again. L grimaced, glancing accusingly at the apparatus - clearly he was too emotionally close to the situation to proceed just now. The detective took a slow breath. At the moment, Kira certainly seemed equally emotionally indisposed; hopefully, he could exploit this.

"I need time to recover," L stated simply. "There will be much to do, with reconstructing the lost data and... making arrangements. And the Shinigami will have to be questioned thoroughly. Do you suppose that many more will die by Kira's... will... during that time?" He glanced up toward the other man from the corner of his eye.

Light simply stared down at his blessed and blood-stained hands, wondering what he would do with them now. It wasn't until he felt the bite of his own nails digging into his palm that he realized how tense he was. He frowned; he hadn't yet resumed his habit of scheduling the deaths of criminals weeks in advance, nor had he yet been able to speak to Misa about judging criminals in his stead since... the night before. It would be an easy matter to stop the killings for the moment, if he wanted to - but _did_ he want to?

Strange, that L had chosen to phrase the question as if he wanted to give Light a way out... Or perhaps it was just another test, to see if he would give a voluntary confession. Light's mouth twitched, one corner trying to rise into a smirk, but the grin never formed.

"Kira's notebook is still in police custody," he said, speaking carefully and without looking at L. "If we assume that the second Kira's notebook is still unaccounted for, it's possible that there will be more killings." Light moistened his lips with a flick of his tongue. "But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that the Kira killings might stop for at least a few days, in light of... everything that's happened."

More than anything, Light wanted things to return to the way they had been. Even if he had often resented L for his surprisingly accurate deductions, and for his propensity for arranging situations in which to test the reactions of the people around him, he was one of the few people Light had ever... respected. Had they only met under different circumstances...

Light slid off the bed, crouching to search the bin beneath it for his clothes and belongings. His slacks and shirt were still damp and were beginning to smell of mildew, but Light found his phone in a separate plastic bag. He removed it and stood, turning to face L as he continued.

"You won't find the Shinigami." Light swallowed, half-wincing at the way his aching throat seized up in the process. "It's... she's gone for good."

He took a step forward, extending his hand to offer L the cell phone. His fingers shook.

"You call," L mumbled without really looking up, making a small dismissive gesture toward the offered phone. But for the part about the Shinigami (so, it was female?), Light had been very careful with his response. But then, L couldn't entirely drop the mask he'd built for Yagami either, could he?

L shifted the blanket from his legs - he'd nothing better to wear than a long hospital gown, and the air was cold on his skin, but he thought that perhaps his clothes might be similarly under his bed. He drew in a breath, steeled himself, and finally pushed down with his arms so that he could swing his legs over the edge of the bed - but the motion seemed to set his entire body to throbbing. He closed his eyes and briefly swayed from the heady rush of altered circulation, and the beeping of the monitor behind him dipped into a keening alarm for a moment before stabilizing again. At this rate, L thought, the nurses would want him gone purely because they'd be tired of running for him every few minutes.

Light hesitantly withdrew the phone, but only got so far as flipping it open before he realized what L was trying to do. "Hey," he ventured, making a false start towards L as he sat up. He didn't quite dare to lay his hands on L at first, not when he saw the young man was able to keep himself upright... but L's face had gone a sickly yellow-white color with the effort. Worse than usual.

Light frowned, taking another step forward with the intention of offering his arm for support - even if the other wouldn't accept it. "Wait, don't -"

With dreadful certainty, L realized what was going to happen just as he began to lose his balance. He simply couldn't do anything about it.

The phone landed with a sharp clatter on the floor as L tipped forward. Light's arms went around L's shoulders, and L's body came against him with enough force to indicate just how hard he would have fallen had Light not been there. A sensor pulled loose from his finger, the monitor alarms beginning to wail.

Instinctively Light tightened his grip, heedless of L's injuries until he felt the man flinch in response. He could feel the quick, steady thump of L's heartbeat through his back, and he instinctively pressed his hands flat over the sensation, taking comfort from it.

L tensed at the touch, not even crying out; it was enough to make his stomach churn. It might be fueled by affection on Light's part, but to L it was only restraint and possession. The way Light only tightened his grip and sighed and lowered his head over L's shoulder made L want to struggle all the more.

"Ryuuzaki -"

But at the sight, over Light's shoulder, of a shadow moving under the door, L brought his hands up to grip the front of the loose scrub-shirt that Light was wearing. He pulled himself a little straighter, still keeping his likely-bruised throat hidden by Light's shoulder and his own hair, just as the approaching nurse outside knocked and immediately opened the door.

It was the same one as before, and she failed to cover a rather exasperated look. "Ryuuzaki-san, you need to _rest_," she said, her words stern and clipped.

L raised his head a little, trying to appear sheepish. "Sorry," he said quietly, looking down again, without loosening his grip on the material in his hands. She wouldn't be able to see his hands, from her angle - only that Yagami seemed to be using catching him as an excuse to embrace him. "My clothes -"

The nurse's expression softened a little. "I'm sorry, we had to cut them off of you yesterday. I suppose you wouldn't remember everything even doing as well as you are. But you really shouldn't be worrying about that yet. Now please, back into bed, get some rest." She expectantly set the loosed finger-sensor on the mattress, giving him room to get back into bed and put it back on. But when Ryuuzaki made no move to comply and shyly kept his eyes averted, and his friend neither met her eyes nor released him, she rolled her eyes. Boys. "I'll come back if your monitors haven't normalized by the time I reach the nurse's station."

L nodded, and the nurse left, closing the door behind her again. L almost immediately pushed away from Light, making no effort to keep his movements from being rough. Light stumbled back with a small, wordless exclamation of surprise, nearly stepping on his cellphone. He glanced down at it, then knelt to retrieve it, staring at L's turned back as he did so.

L held on to the edge of the bed as he obediently slipped the sensor back onto his hand and made his way to the bed's end. The monitors quickly resumed their normal quiet beeping again.

The detective frowned at the unexpectedly overturned chair at the end of the bed - he'd missed that happening somehow - and deftly righted it with one foot. He then pulled the sheet from the bed to wrap himself in and sat heavily in the chair, looking toward the window.

"Call your father."

Light watched the other man from the corner of his eye as he dialed, torn between indignation and shame. He only averted his gaze when the phone began to ring.

Yagami Soichiro answered almost immediately, and Light could tell from the raspy quality of his voice that he hadn't slept all night. After a few clipped assurances of his welfare and L's, Light explained to his father that they were both eager to return to headquarters; Soichiro grudgingly agreed. After all, as Light pointed out, the best way to ensure L's safety in the long run was to solve the case.

"Oh, one other thing, Dad," Light added, licking his lips as he glanced over at L, "Ryuuzaki needs a change of clothes. Do you think you could bring him something from my closet? Something for me, too - my clothes from yesterday are still damp. Actually..." He paused, eyes drifting down to study the bruising on his own wrist from the restraints. "Make sure you bring warm, long-sleeved shirts. I think we both got a little bit chilled yesterday, and the last thing Ryuuzaki needs right now is to catch a cold. Could you bring the scarf Great Aunt Kyoko bought me last year? ...Thanks. Yeah, see you soon."

He hung up, but only stood staring at the phone in silence afterwards, and wondered what he could say to his friend now that the masks they'd created for each other no longer fit.

* * *

**Disclaimer: **Death Note (manga, animation, novels, etc.), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Taugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata/SHUEISHA Inc./Madhouse/DNDP/VAP, and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	4. They Say You're Getting Better

**Authors' Note:** The title for this chapter is a line from the song _Hearing Damage _by Thom Yorke.

* * *

**Furious Angels I: Nameless Here Forevermore**

**Chapter 04: They Say You're Getting Better**

* * *

It made sense to be wearing a scarf; it was November, after all. Nevertheless, L disliked scarves as much as he disliked any close-fit clothing - it all felt strangling, to him. The irony was not lost on him, once Light pointed out the darkening bruises on his throat.

It took a long time to complete the paperwork for them to leave the hospital. L spent the time sitting in the chair by the window, staring at the dreary day outside. The breakfast they were offered was rather unappetizing, except for the green gelatin dessert, but he didn't feel particularly hungry and ate none of it.

It was past noon by the time they were able to leave. It wasn't a long drive back to headquarters, but L spent the ride sitting uncomfortably in the back seat, pretending that he wasn't a foot away from Kira and staring out the window almost exactly as he had in the hospital room. In the driver's seat, Yagami Soichiro seemed perceptive enough, at least, to not attempt to disturb either of them.

The other task force members seemed less perceptive, and had laid out a truly impressive spread of cakes and pastries and the like. It was difficult to not appreciate that effort, though L still didn't feel much like eating. Matsuda in particular seemed intent on pampering the detective, once he'd finished embracing him hard enough to break a few more ribs - L was unable to escape the man's attentions until he forced a smile. It was like being attended to by a particularly desperate hen.

Matsuda inquired about the scarf, but L claimed that he was feeling cold and would rather keep it on, and no one argued.

L settled into his chair at the computer with a large piece of cake, glanced up at the monitors, and looked down again, barely able to swallow a bite. It wasn't the confection, nor that his throat ached. It wasn't that the ergonomic chair seemed particularly uncomfortable when he couldn't pull his legs up the way he was used to doing. It wasn't the chatter going on around him - he'd grown quite used to that.

It was that the last time he'd seen Watari, he'd been right here, sitting in this chair, looking up at the monitors while...

L set the cake down and swiveled the chair to face the others. "The interior surveillance cameras record on a separate circuit from the main databases," he said clearly, cutting through their conversation. "I'd like to review the footage from yesterday afternoon and evening." He located the blonde woman that seemed to be keeping to the back of the group, facing to the side rather than focusing on him the way the others did. "Weddy. Could you retrieve that drive for me, please."

"On it," she responded blandly, without hesitation, immediately leaving the room.

The somewhat pleasant chatter seemed unable to resume, after the instruction. After a moment, Yagami Soichiro cleared his throat. "Ryuuzaki... wouldn't it be better if you went upstairs to rest, after you eat?"

L regarded him for a moment, expressionless, before turning back to the cake and attempting another bite. It stuck in his throat just as badly as the first. "I've been unable to work since yesterday. I'd feel better if I could resume as quickly as possible."

"I", not "we". The awkward silence that followed only emphasized the wording. There was no point in pretending there was much the task force could do right now, after all. Not that L was quite certain of what he could do himself. Not yet.

"I'm stepping out for a few minutes." Light finally broke the silence, making a vague gesture with his phone towards the door. L's gaze followed him until, after taking a chocolate croissant with a nod to Matsuda, Light left the room - but the detective said nothing. Of course Light would need to speak privately with Misa now. The situation had to be explained. Plans had to be made, instructions relayed...

L found that he couldn't bring himself to care exactly what message Light wished to convey.

Light tossed the croissant into a garbage can in the hall the moment he had opportunity - he didn't have the stomach for anything solid any more than L did, at present. L's lack of appetite had been obvious to him even if no one else had noticed.

He made his way to the nearest elevator, intending to head down to the ground floor so that he could step outside to use his phone - but he found himself pushing the button for the top floor instead.

The ride to the top of the tower seemed to take forever. Light stared at the red numbers that ticked away each floor, counting up at regular intervals. Twenty-one, twenty-two...

_Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, breathe..._

The elevator chimed at the twenty-third floor, and Light exited and crossed the hall to take the stairs to the roof.

It was still overcast outside, the sky a roiling gray blanket overhead. Light had to stand in the shelter of the doorway to avoid the wind, and found his eyes automatically drawn to the place where he'd seen L standing the day before, looking out into the storm. He must have realized - why else would he have looked so mournful? Or perhaps it had only been the gray tone of the world, and the way the rain matted down his hair...

_Have you ever uttered a single completely true thing since the day you were born?_

Sighing, Light flipped open his phone and hit the speed-dial button for Misa's primary cell.

When Light returned, the room was completely silent - no voices, no rustle of movement, no sounds coming from the computers. Light started to open his mouth to ask if there was anyone in the darkened room, but glimpsed movement on the central mounted screen before he could speak. The next instant, his own scream ripped from the speakers, so loud that it made him flinch.

L was watching the video of his own death.

If L had noticed him come in, he gave no indication of it. Light took a few steps further into the room so as to leave the doorway clear, but he said nothing - only watched the image on the monitor. He watched himself as panic overtook reason and he began to compress L's chest again and again, counting each beat through his sobs. From the time it began until the first of the paramedics stepped into the frame, the video's automatic timestamp showed the passage of nearly ten minutes.

It was horrifying, and strangely embarrassing, and it seemed impossible to look away.

When the recording reached the point at which L had been loaded onto the gurney, it stopped abruptly, and Light startled at the sudden loss of sound. He looked over at where L sat, only able to see his shoulders and the back of his head, and watched as L drew himself up slightly and began to rewind the footage. The slice of cake on the desk in front of him remained all but untouched.

"Ryuuzaki," Light ventured, raising his voice a little to be heard. He crossed the room to stand beside L, but only looked at him from the corner of his eye. "Is this really necessary?" His voice was unsteady, and Light bowed his head. He didn't think he could watch again, especially not alone with L. The rest of the team must have found tasks requiring their attention elsewhere; Light wondered if that had been his father's idea. It seemed like something he would do.

L barely acknowledged the other's presence, rewinding to the point at which the room's power had gone out, bathing the scene in red emergency lighting. "There may be important details," he responded, staring as the footage began again, his jaw tight and his voice flat. "Watari wiped the data because of the inherent security breach involved in his death, but I can find no evidence of that breach. Given the method of murder, it is clear that one of the notebooks was used, and that there are multiple notebooks - our names are not in the notebook in our custody. This leads me to conclude that they must be in another notebook. I suspect the Shinigami. Misa claims that she does not know my name, which I find believable from her reactions; she is therefore not responsible, despite the near-certainty that she's been acting as Kira for the past several days at your instruction."

L's voice was so neutral, his words so detached, that Light found himself almost soothed into listening as if they were discussing some mundane facet of the case rather than anything as traumatic as the achingly slow sequence of events on the screen before them. But he still flinched at the sound of his own scream as it played again, even though this time he was expecting it - he hadn't realized that such a terrible noise could come from his own body. His throat was still sore.

L sat leaned further forward than usual, fractured ribs dictating that his feet be on the floor (though he'd long since kicked off the shoes that Soichiro had brought to the hospital for him), and stared unblinking at the screen. "I can find no evidence whatsoever of the Shinigami's presence in the footage, so while I suspect her, I currently have no proof. She has not been sighted at all since the events yesterday." He paused, and added quietly, "As predicted."

On the monitor, Light's counting reached thirty, and he bent to tilt back L's head and force air into him, bringing their mouths together. Unconsciously, L worried at his lower lip with one finger, before abruptly dropping his hand to tightly grip the arm of the chair.

It wasn't until L lowered his hand from his mouth that Light made the connection between the gesture and what had just happened on the tape. His own recollection of the events was a red haze; he hadn't thought about what he was doing at all. Now he had to fight the sudden compulsion to either lick his lips or wipe his mouth on something.

L finally turned to regard the younger man, blinking as though noticing his presence for the first time, despite the fact that they'd been conversing. "You smell like rain. Did you speak to Misa?"

Light was almost relieved at the excuse to speak rather than focus on hiding his discomfort. "She didn't answer her phone." Realizing that his own phone was still in his left hand, Light set it on the desk, next to L's cake. He glanced aside at one of the chairs, wondering if he ought to sit down - but thought better of it. "I'm going to have to apologize to her in person, I think," he said, reaching up to scratch the nape of his neck. His hair was badly in need of a wash. "I did tell her not to judge you based on what happened this morning, though."

That she might be unable to "judge" L for lack of his name made no sense; he couldn't yet puzzle out why she'd claimed such. But it was unlikely that she would act without his direction, in any case.

Even so, he couldn't afford to go too long without apologizing to her. She had a Death Note in hand, and at the moment, he did not.

Abruptly, Light reached past L and shut off the recording, which had just reached the point at which he'd begun to sob openly as he gasped out the count. He couldn't listen to that anymore. "Ryuuzaki, get up. You're not going to watch this again today." Light caught L's gaze and held it, determined - but he also raised his hand, palm-up, in a gesture of appeal. "There's something I need to show you."

"Really," L murmured, defiantly meeting his "friend's" gaze for a moment before glancing down at his hand, which he did not take. "What do you intend to show me now?" he asked, turning the chair and dragging himself to his feet. "Slippery stairs? Edge of the roof maybe?" His voice remained exactly in the same tone it had been a few moments before, but when he looked back to the other's face, his eyes had narrowed slightly. Nevertheless, L shoved his hands into the pockets of his borrowed, slightly loose pants, and winced as he forgot not to hunch his shoulders too much, and followed, bare feet almost silent as he walked.

Light said nothing, mouth clamped tightly shut, and simply turned and led the way out into the hall.

They didn't pass anyone in the halls. The tower was staffed by a skeleton crew - there weren't many people willing to work the Kira case now, even in the minor role of building staff, and very few of those who did actually had clearance to access all the floors of the building. For that reason alone, Light wasn't entirely surprised that no one had made the discovery before he had, on his way back from the roof. But then, he'd known what he was looking for.

"Here," Light announced cryptically, stopping in front of the door to the server room. "I'm sure we would have been informed if anyone else had found... this. You'll see what I mean."

Light punched the ten-digit code into the wall-mounted security system and waited until the door automatically unlocked, then entered and held it partially open for L. The air inside was as cold and sterile-smelling as that of a morgue, and as he entered, the detective thought of the room's Halon fire suppression system and how quickly it would drain the oxygen from the sealed chamber.

Light led him down the long aisle of softly-buzzing computer towers. There, at the end, was a pile of fine, pale sand, with a black notebook protruding from it at a slight angle - only visible from the door if one expected to see it, given how dimly the server room was generally lit.

L stopped just as his toes contacted the barest wisp of the sand, tilting his head.

"This is what's left," Light said quietly, looking at L and then kneeling to retrieve Rem's Death Note. There was no scream, this time, as his fingers came into contact with it, but at this point L had deduced why.

Light started to flip through the pages, but stopped, closed the notebook, and offered it to the other man without looking at the last filled page. "If your name is the last one written down, you'll know for sure."

L silently stared at the notebook, shifting to stand on one foot, rubbing his lifted foot on his shin for warmth. When he finally did reach out to take the notebook, he held it gingerly between thumb and forefinger, inspecting its exterior before lifting his other hand to page through it.

There were names, most written in Japanese or Korean characters, a few written using Roman letters. L shifted to his other foot, carefully turning until he found the last page with writing on it. It held exactly two names.

L wondered if Light had come here while away from the others, and resolved to check the security footage later. It was a strange and elaborate staging, if the notebook were fake, and he was certain that Light had not had time or resources to enact such a hoax himself. If it were false, only the Shinigami herself could have prepared the scene - only she would have known his and Watari's true names, which were indeed written on the final page. As they had both suffered the notebook's effects, it was a reasonable assumption that this Note was real. The surveillance footage would reveal all, now that they knew where to look.

So... Yagami had indeed led him to the weapon of his own attempted murder.

...And the murderer, though he was under no illusion that the young man still kneeling before him was not the one who had orchestrated the attack. "This is what's left," L echoed, lowering the notebook and staring down at the incongruous sand. "You're telling me that the Shinigami is... dead." He shifted his gaze, regarding his companion. "What makes you certain of that? I had wondered if a God of Death could die, but I don't understand why this should indicate such an occurrence."

Reaching down, Light pinched a bit of the sand between his right thumb and forefinger, inspecting it as he considered his words. To all outward appearances, the sand was perfectly normal - if especially fine and uniform.

"Apparently this is what happens when a Shinigami dies," he explained, facing away from the room's security camera, as he wiped his hand on his knee without getting up. "Rem witnessed the death of another Shinigami once, and described it. If a Shinigami kills with intent of extending a human's life, it... dies." The fact that the story had come through Misa was irrelevant at the moment, especially since Rem had been there at the time. Light was still wary of incriminating himself, or Misa for that matter, while being recorded by the security cameras. Just because L knew didn't mean there was evidence, so there was no need to provide that - though L seemed markedly disinterested in taking any direct action against him right now, Light knew that could easily change.

After what seemed to be a long silence during which L only stared at the sand, Light straightened and cleared his throat. "We should get the others. I don't know that it'll be any use, but we should collect forensic samples of the remains... I suppose you'll examine the notebook yourself." If L's name was written in that Note, as Light was certain it was, he thought L unlikely to let anyone handle it other than himself.

L still said nothing, gnawing at his thumb with the notebook dangling at his side, absorbing the idea that nothing more than the intent behind a Shinigami's actions could result in its death.

The other notebook's 13-day rule must indeed be false, as their testing would have proven, thereby incriminating Misa, as the Kira murders had begun again immediately following her release. Light had been sure to lead the other task force members to conclude that disproving that rule would result in Misa's execution, while all had been in the Shinigami's presence. It would also incriminate Light, but Light had purposely directed the discussion in terms of how Misa would be affected, which could only mean that Rem was motivated by Misa's welfare, not Light's.

Rem had murdered Watari, and by all rights should have succeeded in killing L himself, in order to protect Misa. She had done this knowing that it would result in her own death - a fact also known to Kira. The detective and Shinigami had both been moved into position like chess pieces, manipulated by Kira until they'd had no choice.

There was no point in being angry with the Shinigami; it had been a misplaced act of nobility from a creature for whom killing humans held no intrinsic value. It had all been Kira's doing.

L again remembered the insane grin that had marred Light's face. "So there were three deaths here yesterday," he murmured, scowling only when he turned away and began to walk toward the room's entrance.

Behind him, the younger man stood and followed. "Yes, now that you mention it, that's right." A bemused little frown tugged at the corners of Light's mouth - he hadn't really thought of it that way until now, and having that disconnect made clear was a little troubling. He wondered now how Misa would take the news, and whether he should tell her immediately or not.

L keyed the door release and stepped outside - but paused and turned back with his hand on the doorframe, close to the exterior keypad, the notebook tucked under his other arm. It would be so easy. It would take only a few keystrokes to activate the fire suppression system, to lock the door and release the oxygen-depleting Halon, and watch. It wouldn't be murder - only execution.

Light raised an eyebrow fractionally, intending to ask what L thought such a display of trapping him would accomplish. He'd endured nearly two months bound hand and foot in solitary confinement, after all. But then he noticed the sign above the door that warned against being inside when the fire suppression system was activated. Slowly, his brown eyes looked down again, focusing where L's hand rested on the doorframe.

"How many notebooks are there, Kira?"

Light's gaze flicked to L's face when the detective spoke. His eyes narrowed, brows pulling sharply together. The charade of civility hurt, but this - it was downright insulting, as if L had ceased to give a damn about anything: the other investigators, his own safety, anything. He was acting as though the case was nothing but a puzzle to be solved, everyone involved nothing more than pieces, and none of it actually mattered to him.

It wasn't right. It wasn't what Light wanted. L should be the way he'd been before, not... like this. Not standing there ready to kill Light himself, or threatening to, asking for final information that was unlikely to matter once Light, Kira, had been killed.

"How should I know?" Light snapped, impulsively reaching out and catching the dangling ends of the soft mohair scarf around L's neck. He twisted them around his hand and pulled, hard enough to nearly make L stumble, weak as he still was. Light caught his shoulder with his free hand to keep him upright and gave him a shake for emphasis, all the more angry because L was just swaying, loose, head hanging. "I'm sick of this bullshit! I don't care what you think of me now, L, but stop acting like nothing matters!"

And then, just as abruptly as he'd caught hold of L, Light let go. There was a faint flush of emotion in his cheeks, and he was breathing faster than usual, the air hissing through his nose.

But it doesn't matter, L thought, though he made no verbal response. He only needed to know if killing Kira now would end the murders and bring the case to a close. If there were only the three notebooks, there was a high probability of that. So far as the Kira case was concerned, what L thought of Light personally had never mattered at all, and L almost resented Light for thinking that it somehow did.

L wondered if he'd have time to get into the server room himself before the door sealed, if he activated the Halon. He lifted his head and stared at Light, his face nearly expressionless but for a vague hint of contempt, or possibly pity. Kira didn't even seem to realize that there was no way back to the comfortable deceit they'd cultivated between them.

"The Shinigami said it herself," Light muttered, interrupting L's thoughts and letting his arms fall to his sides as he bowed his own head. "There's no telling how many notebooks are in this world at any given time. Including this one, which we can assume wasn't in human possession before now, there would logically be at least three." Light glanced back up at L and sighed, a hint of silent apology in his chocolate eyes. It was entirely his fault that L was acting like this, wasn't it. "If you want to kill me," he said, emotionless, "you could always just write my name down in the notebook and blame Kira for it. The others would believe you."

"What would killing you accomplish?" the detective asked, lowering his gaze, glancing to the side. If there was truly no knowing how many notebooks were in the world, there was no guarantee that killing Kira would stop anything; another Kira might simply appear elsewhere.

He stepped aside to allow the other out of the server room. "There isn't even enough non-circumstantial evidence to charge you as Kira and keep you imprisoned." He looked up again, his tone becoming flippant. "Besides, you're an indispensable member of this team. I couldn't conduct the investigation without you." He neglected to mention that technically he'd never re-formed the task force under his command; the others simply seemed to have failed to leave or stop listening to him. Except for Aizawa, who had left and returned.

L stepped further back, hands jammed in his pockets and notebook tucked under his arm, and slouched away down the hall. Light didn't immediately move to follow - only remained where he was for a few moments, in the doorway. He looked back over his shoulder toward where Rem had died.

Then, as if woken abruptly from a daydream, Light turned and hurried after L.

They walked together, side by side but distant, without speaking. Light could still feel the twinge of strain in his arms and across his shoulders from the ten long minutes he'd spent forcing L's heart to beat, and he thought of the desperation so evident in his face and voice on the security footage.

It didn't seem fair. He'd wanted so much to save his friend... hadn't he succeeded?

"Ryuuzaki," he ventured, only barely remembering to use the alias now that they were almost back at the central control room. Light reached out and plucked at L's sleeve, wanting to make it clear that he had something important to say. L stopped and turned, glancing down at Yagami's hand as it fell away from his sleeve.

Light looked up and down the hall to be certain they were alone and out of camera-shot, before raising his eyes to L's face. He lifted his right hand slightly as if to lay it on the other man's shoulder, but it never got that far. He quickly looked away, fingers flexing as he considered his next words.

"You're right that charging me based only on your own suspicions and past circumstantial evidence would be pointless," he admitted, "but if you had clear and indisputable proof - such as a recorded confession - to illustrate malicious intent at the time of the killings... if you could prove that while I was in possession of a notebook I was acting of my own free will, and that giving up the notebook was merely a means to avoid punishment..."

Light kept his eyes downcast as he spoke; his mouth and throat had gone almost painfully dry. "That's the same principal as a murderer taking acid before he kills so that he can claim an altered state of consciousness after the fact. I... I think you'd be able to make the charges stick."

It wasn't that Light wanted to be punished - far from it. He felt no guilt for the things he had done as Kira; the world needed to be cleansed. But... if there was something he could say, something he could do, that would prove his sincerity to L, prove that he only wanted things to be as they'd been before, make it happen...

The detective listened and watched the younger man's uncomfortable display, and continued to look into his face even when Yagami looked away. He was perfectly aware of the scenario that Light posed - he was simply surprised to hear it from Light himself. He was certain that Kira regretted nothing but the personal consequences of reviving his nemesis. But was that enough motivation for Kira to turn himself in?

L lifted his thumb to his lips as Light spoke, biting a little at his thumbnail before responding. "Are you offering?"

Light made no response, and they stood as they were for what felt like several minutes, before L lowered his gaze. He'd thought not. "I'm tired of this case. It's cost too much. I want it to end." He swallowed, feeling the ache in his throat beneath the scarf. "Misa seems to have lost her ability to kill without a name, and is unlikely to act without your consent. And you... well, it's up to you, if the murders cease, isn't it, Kira. And whether you are successfully charged and tried is also, as you point out, up to you." At least, until someone else of like mind found a notebook...

After another moment of silence, L simply turned to continue walking down the hall. "Exactly how the case is resolved is your call, isn't it? I only want it to end."

Light followed him, dissatisfied with his own silence but unable to find anything to say. He'd thought it would be as simple as apologizing, at least once L had seen the footage - what better proof could there be that their friendship was genuine? But the chasm between them seemed to only be growing wider, and nothing he could say or do would bridge the gap.

They reached the control room, and Light waited as L keyed in the entry code. "About Misa," he started to say. "I don't think..."

"Oh, there you are!" Matsuda called out, rounding a corner from the direction of the elevators and breaking into a run to catch up to them. He skidded to a stop and held the door for them, ushering Light and L into the room. "Everyone's been looking for you - the Chief came back and you weren't here, Ryuuzaki, so..."

"We were in the server room," Light supplied, trying not to let too much of his exasperation bleed through into his voice. "We found another notebook." He indicated the Death Note under L's arm with a nod, and saw Matsuda's eyes widen. The others, who had apparently regrouped in the main room to wait for L's return, all came over to see for themselves.

Light didn't bother to correct their speculations about where the new Note had come from. An idea having occurred to him, he detached himself from the others and went to the row of file cabinets on the far side of the room. They should still be there, in the middle drawer...

"Light, Ryuuzaki," Soichiro cut in, speaking loudly enough that everyone else fell silent automatically. "In light of yesterday's events, I want you both to keep the rest of us informed when either of you goes off on your own, even if it's just to make a call. That goes for everyone." He looked around, making eye contact with each in turn. "It was lucky that we were all in one room yesterday. If Ryuuzaki had been alone when it happened, like Watari..." Soichiro shook his head and sighed. "I don't even want to think about it. Whenever possible, we should avoid going anywhere alone."

"That's a good idea," Light affirmed, returning to stand near L, his hands in his pockets. "But there's a problem."

Soichiro frowned. "What's that, son?"

"We know that Kira can manipulate a person's actions before their death. We've seen it with imprisoned criminals, and it's entirely possible that there are many instances where it's happened that we simply haven't identified because the circumstances didn't seem unusual." Light withdrew his right hand from his pocket, gesturing as he spoke. "It's not unreasonable to assume that Kira might try to separate us next time, to prevent resuscitation, if he determines that Ryuuzaki survived. And out of all of us, Ryuuzaki is the most obvious target. That's why..."

Light's left hand shot out. He caught L by the wrist and pulled his arm up - there was a glint of metal between his fingers, something silvery around his wrist - and the next instant there was a sharp snap and the clatter of a chain.

"You and I will stay handcuffed together until this case is over," he finished, smirking triumphantly. "This way, no matter where you go, I'll always be close by."

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**Disclaimer: **Death Note (manga, animation, novels, etc.), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Taugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata/SHUEISHA Inc./Madhouse/DNDP/VAP, and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	5. You Give Yourself Away

**Authors' Note:** The title for this chapter is a line from the song _With Or Without You _by U2, which is seriously just an absolutely fantastic song that everybody should be familiar with, dangit.

Also, hey people... Thank you all for reviewing! We really appreciate it!

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**Furious Angels I: Nameless Here Forevermore**

**Chapter 05: You Give Yourself Away**

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L was just beginning to wonder if Yagami Soichiro hadn't been overly traumatized by the previous day's events as well - the man seemed to be becoming a little more involved in his personal welfare than L expected - when the man's son began speaking. The longer Light went on, the greater the strange sinking sensation in the pit of L's stomach grew.

He could tell, almost immediately, where this was going, and was prepared to reject the suggestion - or better yet, to offer the counter-suggestion that each he and Yagami each be leashed to some _other_ member of the task force. But he wasn't given the opportunity. Yagami was _fast_.

L glanced at the newly-latched cuff on his wrist, and then at Yagami's smirking face. His expression altered very, very slightly, the bland stare becoming a distinct glare. It was all the warning Kira was going to get.

The detective was flexible enough that he only had to lean back a little in order to bring his leg up far enough to strike the smirk itself, lightning-fast. Kira's head snapped back most satisfyingly, but L wasn't done, and did not lose his balance, instead gripping and yanking on the chain hard enough to fling his opponent down.

Light flailed as he fell. One of the wheeled office chairs got in the way, overturning in a clatter as loud as the shocked cries of the others around them. Light hadn't the chance to catch his breath, but he instinctively rolled, narrowly avoiding L's foot as it stomped down at him.

Rather than trying to rise, Light gripped the chain with both hands and pulled - and when he felt resistance, he let go and kicked at L's legs, using L's own momentum to topple him. The chain went taut, helping to pull Light up into a sitting position, and he scrambled onto all fours and launched himself onto the other man. It was a dirty move, but he pressed down on L's fractured ribs with both hands, trying to immobilize him. "What the hell are you _doing_?" he yelled, distantly aware of the pain in his jaw and the coppery taste of blood. "You idiot! You're going to hurt yourself!"

L grunted at the sudden pressure on his chest, the flash of pain almost debilitating. He didn't care, but he could feel his heart thumping far harder in his chest than it should have, and it was difficult to draw breath. The combination sent a sudden renewed surge of fear-tinged adrenalin through him.

The others were crowding them now, trying to pull them apart, but Light fisted his hands in L's borrowed shirt and held on. Blood from his split lip dripped down onto L's pale cheek.

"I know you're upset about Watari," Light choked out, his anger rapidly bleeding into frustrated grief again, "but _damn it_, I saved your life! You don't have to be grateful, but why are you _angry_ about it? Would you rather I had let you die?"

Three things happened at once: L managed to curl and bring both feet up to his opponent's chest; he made a swift movement with his hand to loop the cuffs' chain around Kira's neck; and he found the breath to growl out three words.

"_You should have!_"

When L kicked, it should have been a killing blow, the chain snapping Kira's neck - but his chest _hurt_ and the strength suddenly drained out of him entirely. He could only heave his opponent off of him, the chain drawing tight enough to bruise, strangle if it wasn't removed before Kira struggled too much. But that was all. L lay curled on his side, gasping in a sudden rush of dizziness, even as hands fell on him and Soichiro's voice bellowed.

"STOP!"

L realized that he'd closed his eyes, and opened them again, but all he could see were the strong hands pinning his shackled arm to the floor, lest he pull the chain tight again. His gaze followed the hands up to see that it was Mogi that held him.

"Not like this," the man said quietly, looking right back. "I was the same when I lost my father. It doesn't help."

Light found himself on his back on the floor, Matsuda and his father loosening the loop of chain and removing it from around his neck. "Light, are you alright?" Soichiro asked, laying a hand on his son's face. Light tried to answer, but the effort brought tears to his eyes and made him cough and gag, so he only nodded. Matsuda went to get a cup of water.

L closed his eyes and waited for his heartbeat to slow. Light closed his eyes and tried to come to grips with the realization that L had honestly just tried to kill him.

"That's it," Soichiro growled, sitting back on his shins. He peered around Mogi's shoulder at L, frowning, and then pushed himself upright. "These two need to be kept apart. Mogi, you'll be handcuffed to L for tonight, and Light and I. That's best for everyone." He turned to Matsuda, who was helping Light to sit up, and took the water from him the moment Light was upright. "Now, Matsuda, would you please go get the keys so that we can get the cuffs off these two?"

L opened his eyes again, too drained to do anything but lie still. How many times had he had opportunity to end this? But he'd let each one slip away, one way or another...

His thoughts began to wind more tightly back together. Mogi had called it. There was no difference between his own emotions and anyone else's under the circumstances, really. He was giving his emotions reign when he knew full well how counterproductive that was, and he'd no time for that kind of indulgence.

He nodded to Mogi to release his arm, and slowly strained to sit up, only to find Mogi helping to push him upright. He glanced at the man in thanks before speaking. "Forgive me," he murmured, directing the comment toward everyone in general and Soichiro in particular. He didn't look at Light. "You are entirely correct, Yagami-san. I... please, forgive me..."

He felt only vaguely aware of the words he spoke. The words he truly needed to say - that Light Yagami was, without doubt, Kira, here and now - wouldn't come, so he could only instead apologize for making an attempt on Soichiro's son's life.

Failing so badly truly did make one worthless, didn't it.

Off to one side, approaching, Matsuda coughed uncomfortably. "Ah, sir? The key... doesn't seem to be in the cabinet..."

Of course, there were varying degrees of worthlessness, weren't there.

L sighed heavily, physical pain (if no other sort) easing. "It's all right. Yagami-san, I assure you, I am no threat to your son."

"You'll find the key before you sleep," Soichiro said dryly to Matsuda, before addressing the detective again. "Ryuuzaki-san, I realize how much you want to catch Kira now, but perhaps a few days off of the case would be in order. At least until the funeral."

There. He'd known that would be suggested, and how could he argue the point now? L could only hang his head, his voice low. "Yes, sir."

No one remarked on the uncharacteristic deference, and if any of the task force members noticed the fresh bruises on his neck where the scarf had been mostly pulled away, none of them said anything.

There was some discussion about how the others should pair off for safety's sake - being the only female, Weddy presented a bit of an issue for some of the other task force members, but she summarily declared that she'd accompany Aiber and that was the end of the matter. Neither L nor Light paid attention - they seated themselves on one of the sofas near the stairs, and faced in opposite directions, and didn't speak at all.

The days that followed seemed to drag on forever. Light and L resumed their joint living arrangements in the same quarters they had previously shared, but the familiarity was anything but comforting, and they did not speak to each other.

Neither of them slept the first night.

While L had agreed to remove himself from the case for a few days, it did him absolutely no good, to his mind. At first, he tried a little distraction - reading some manga - but that lasted all of a couple of hours. He spent much of his time listlessly searching the internet for information on Shinigami and spirits of the dead in general, in the hopes of finding folklore or mythology that might be applicable to the case, however garbled it might be. There was quite a bit of information, but of course, nothing that could be considered concrete.

He tried not to think about Watari. He sent the messages that needed to be sent, with Yagami as far from him as their chain would allow, and used careful wording and erased the laptop's records of the messages thereafter. There was no response, but that was the intention.

Light found that he had very little to do as well. He was able to speak with Misa over the phone, and succeeded in communicating to her that she was not to use her Death Note until further notice - it helped that he could hear Ryuuk in the background clarifying his orders for her benefit. And while there was no longer any need to code his messages in front of L, Light was still concerned about the possibility of recording devices, so he kept the call short and to the point. Gaining Misa's forgiveness for the incident in the hospital was disturbingly simple - he'd only to ask.

Interactions with the rest of the team were tense enough that after only a few hours, Light and L, in unspoken consent, returned to their suite. There was only so much of Matsuda's constant apologies that either of them could take.

When twenty-four hours had passed and the key to the handcuffs still had not been found, both men agreed to a truce in order to take a much-needed shower, and subsequently remained shirtless, as there was no way to dress from the waist up with the cuffs locked and keyless. The bruises on their chests and throats matched almost perfectly.

On the second night, Light slept, but dreamed so violently that L could see his rapid eye movement even in the dim light that filtered through the room's curtains from the city outside. L watched the way Light twitched and squirmed; it was somewhat satisfying to know that Kira did not sleep well. Not like before. For a little while, he even talked in his sleep - but at that point L tugged the blankets up over Yagami's shoulders to sooth him a little with the warmth, which quieted the young man. L did not want to listen to Kira quietly crying his name, even if it was only a pseudonym.

In the morning, Light woke with the sense that he'd dreamed something he could not remember. It left him troubled and sullen throughout the day, which otherwise progressed just as the previous one had, for the most part.

Light's father seemed to find frequent excuses to contact them or visit the suite, presumably so as to verify that Light was all right. Despite L being off-duty, as it were, Soichiro notified them of the only news of the case - that there had still been no new deaths attributable to Kira, and that the lab to which they'd sent the samples of sand from the server room had reported in. The material was composed entirely of known substances; its only oddities were its exceedingly uniform size and shape, and where it had been found.

Light began to notice a subtle change in L. The detective seemed distracted, and barely ate, even when presented with a wide variety of sweets from which to choose (which Weddy provided a few times a day much as Watari had). Light was sure that L hadn't slept at all the last few nights, and it was beginning to show - he was even more pale than usual, and the dark shadows beneath his eyes were more pronounced. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, and he sometimes slurred his words. No matter how long he'd regularly gone without sleep before, his body was trying to heal, and without sleep, it was taking its toll on him.

It was past two in the morning on the third night when Light finally announced that he was going to bed. He stood up from his desk and closed his laptop, waiting for L to rise and follow him - but he had to repeat himself and tug on the chain that linked their wrists to get a response.

L hadn't been asleep; he simply seemed to be starting to lose touch with what was going on around him. He stood, swaying a little, and held tight with his free hand to the throw blanket he'd wrapped around his bare shoulders. It would feel good to lie down and relax... but he knew that to be a trap. He'd sit up against the headboard as he had the past few nights, and count as the minutes passed, he decided.

At least he could draw his knees up to rest his arms on now, though he still couldn't crouch the way he was accustomed to (and he was certain that his mental abilities suffered for it). With the lack of sleep, his entire body ached, even with the prescribed painkillers from the hospital, but it was nothing he couldn't stand, L thought. What bothered him the most was that his eyes felt gritty and desperate to close.

L wondered vaguely if he'd somehow gotten some of the Shinigami's remains in his eyes. The notion prompted him to consider exactly what effects those remains might have on humans, and if such might have anything to do with European nursery rhymes about the Sandman...

Light turned back the covers on the bed they shared and changed into the pajama pants he slept in. He eased himself down onto the mattress with a sigh - his chest still ached where L had kicked him - and shifted over to the far side so that L could get into bed as well.

It was some moments before Light felt the mattress heave as L settled onto it. Light neither looked nor spoke - he simply rolled onto his right side, adjusted the pillow, switched off the bedside lamp, and closed his eyes.

It was only thirteen minutes into Yagami's regular, deep breathing that L suddenly snapped wide awake and realized that he'd lost track of the seconds he'd been counting to stay awake. Lost count. Lost time. Ten minutes. It sent a chill through him and for all of a quarter of an hour afterward, he was wide awake.

It didn't last. He jolted to awareness twice more, and resorted to biting the inside of his mouth to the point that it bled, trying to stay awake.

But in the end, around half-past four, he slipped away, curled on his side almost entirely in the top quarter of the bed on his pillow, his back to Yagami. His shackled arm was draped awkwardly behind him so as to pull on the other's wrist as little as possible.

It was a little while later that L's sleep became increasingly agitated, but that only lasted a few minutes before his eyes flew wide and he gave a shout that was nearly a scream, rolling into a crouch and breathing hard. He could feel his heart pounding so hard that he thought he must be shaking with it. Intellectually, he could acknowledge that it had been a dream, but intellect had very little power against the unreasoning, primal fear that surged through his veins. That dark _nothing_ had wrapped around him and he'd tried to cry out several times before breaking free and succeeding.

There was enough slack in the chain that it didn't pull taut when L moved; it was purely his cry that woke Light. The brunette pushed himself up on his elbows and turned to face his bedmate, instantly and completely awake. He lay staring into the near-dark toward L, listening to his quick, shallow breaths and wondering at the knot of worry in his belly, trying to decide if he should say something or not.

Finally, Light pushed himself up into a sitting position. He couldn't see L's face at all from this angle, but he could make out the tension in his shoulders and the glistening sheen of sweat across his back. Light folded his legs beneath the blankets and leaned forward, bracing his right forearm across his knees. Instinct and an elder sibling's habit dictated that his other arm ought to reach to go around L, but he resisted the urge, and instead let his hand rest on the mattress between them. "Ryuuzaki..."

After a few moments' more indecision, Light slowly brought his arm up and curled it around L's trembling shoulders. He fully expected the gesture to be rebuffed, perhaps violently, but was determined to at least attempt to soothe his one-time friend's distress. "Is there anything I can..." he began, but the words stuck in his throat.

He was probably only making things worse, he thought. Light swallowed, wincing a little from the bruises the chain had left on his throat, and made to withdraw his arm from around the other man. But he stopped, allowing his hand to rest between L's shoulder blades with the quick thumping of his heartbeat in his fingers, and he couldn't draw away further. "...Sorry," he murmured, licking his lips.

Only then did L become aware of the words being spoken, and of the hand lying on his back. Still panting, he turned his head enough to see the other, regarding him with unnaturally wide eyes. _Sorry?_ Sorry made everything all right? Sorry meant that they could be friends and he could accept comfort from the person that was responsible for the nightmare in the first place? His shoulders tensed. "Don't touch me, Kira."

An angry flush warmed Light's cheeks, his expression hardening. "I get that you've been through something I can never understand, and that you resent me for it even though I brought you back," he said softly, his fingers curling into a fist against L's spine, "but..."

L gave an almost-laugh, a few small, mad-sounding huffs. "You have no idea, do you, Kira... the dark... and all you do..."

Almost without realizing his own intent, Light lashed out - he shoved, sending L sprawling sideways onto the mattress. Light scrambled to restrain him, pinning L's arms with one hand and twisting the blankets around his legs with the other, then kneeling on them to free his hand. He leaned forward, all in the same quick motion, his weight pushing L onto his back - and when he spoke he could dimly see his own breath ruffling the other man's hair. And L only let it happen, disturbingly ragdoll-limp again.

"Stop calling me Kira!" Light all but shouted, startled by his own reaction but unable to stop. "I'm not - I'm not a murderer! I was- I had to- This wasn't what was supposed to happen!"

This wasn't supposed to _hurt_ inside so much. Light drew a shuddering breath and struggled to hold himself together, curled forward almost as L had been a moment before, half on top of his companion, his face buried against his own forearms. All the hurt and fear and uncertainty and frustration of the past several days came crashing over him in a wave.

"I just want you to call me Light-kun again," he managed, and raised his head to look at L. "_Please_. I'm still the same person I was when this all began! Didn't you always suspect me? It was all right then; what's so different now?" His eyes darted frantically across the other man's face, seeking some sign of acknowledgment. "You knew! You knew and you let it happen anyway, and... and _that's_ not my fault..."

Light was entirely correct, for all that he seemed incapable of understanding what he'd done, L realized. He had indeed known, and hadn't done anything about it. He could have pushed harder, he could have trapped, he could have accused, he could have removed Kira from existence - a perfectly valid option considering the certainty involved, though it would have broken the trust of the rest of the task force. Or he could have simply spoken honestly with Light and told him why...

But he hadn't done any of those things.

L thought of Watari - not of his death, but of the last time he'd gone to see the man that had raised him. He thought of when he'd gone to apologize, because he'd been certain that Kira would kill him, and had been at a loss.

"Solving the case has become secondary," the old man had said softly, with sympathy, as though stating an obvious fact.

L hadn't known how to explain it - that he preferred the company of Yagami Light to that of anyone else he'd ever met, even in contention, and had found as many ways for the interaction to continue as he could, to the point of... failure. "He's my friend," he'd whispered.

"He's more to you than that." Watari hadn't hesitated in his stern assessment, and that alone only shook L a little more. "Tell him."

"It won't change anything."

"Tell him. You don't want to die with regrets, do you?"

So he'd tried, on the roof in the rain, then on the stairs, and he'd still failed completely. In the end, he'd thought that it would be better to simply give up; wasn't it an honorable defeat, if there was nothing else he could bring himself to do...?

L stared blankly at the bedroom's darkened ceiling, Light's frustrated voice still ringing in his ears. Calling out Kira was petty, spiteful, just another way of pushing Light away and running from the situation. He'd thought he no longer cared if he lived or died, that he deserved what he got for his failure and for getting Watari killed as well - but that was only wallowing in failure and fear instead of facing it and dealing with it, wasn't it.

The way he was going, he'd die with nothing _but_ regrets, wouldn't he. What was he afraid of?

_Dark and nothing and outside of time..._

To die with regrets had seemed the only thing Watari found unforgivable, the detective thought, closing his eyes.

L opened his eyes. "Light-kun," he murmured, quietly but firmly, "Get off of me."

Though the breath that escaped him was almost a sob, Light nodded and leveraged himself up on all fours, carefully easing himself off to one side to allow L to sit up. "I'm sorry." Light set his hands on his knees, staring down at them for a moment before looking up at L. "I just... I don't understand why you're... being like this."

L slowly pulled himself upright, until they were sitting next to each other, the handcuff chain slack between them. "If you fail, if you can't solve the puzzle even when all the pieces are right there, you might as well be dead," he murmured. "I failed. I didn't - couldn't lay down the pieces even though I had them in my hands. And Watari died for it, and I... should have." He swallowed; his throat was hurting again, worse than it had been for the past few days. "It is as Light-kun said. I knew, and I did nothing, and now..."

Light sat for some moments merely watching him. Finally he drew himself up, sitting back on his folded legs. "Ryuuzaki..." he began, tentatively addressing the detective by his assumed name in the hope that it would afford them both the emotional distance necessary for the subject at hand, "I... I want you to live; doesn't that matter? Out of all the people in the world, you turned out to be the only one I couldn't stand to lose. I don't know why. But you're the only one that I wanted to give a second chance." He looked down at his hands. "I wouldn't call that failure."

L raised an eyebrow, looking at Light from the corner of his eye, too tired to express his skepticism any further. So that was Light's reasoning: a second chance granted by a merciful god.

Or perhaps... perhaps the truth was that L had not been the only one granted a second chance in Light's act of desperation. Perhaps this had been the only way.

L huffed, realizing how much his position (not to mention Light's rough treatment) had caused his chest to ache again; he'd drawn his knees up further than he'd intended, trying to think. "But I don't..." _But I don't know what to do now._ He couldn't force the words out. His voice wanted to catch, and his breath wouldn't come steady. Finally, with a sigh, L lowered himself back to lie down, raising his arm to cover his eyes in the same motion, the chain of the cuffs clinking slightly with the repositioning.

Something of the previous night's dream rose up in Light's mind, unbidden - a sense of loss and loneliness so pervasive that the young man felt himself shiver as if with a physical chill. He opened his mouth to say something - not because he had anything relevant to say, but because he wanted to hear L's voice and be reassured that he was there and awake and _alive_ - but it was L who spoke first.

"Need to sleep," L mumbled, vaguely aware that he was feeling overly emotional because of how tired he was. "'To sleep, perchance to dream; aye, there's the rub...'"

It took Light a beat to realize that the reason the words sounded strange and jarring to his ear was because they were not in Japanese. "I've never heard you speak English before," Light remarked, a little grateful that L seemed to accept his reasoning enough to allow the conversation to end. "That's Shakespeare..."

L grunted in response, so tired that he hadn't realized he'd spoken that part aloud. The words were Hamlet's in contemplating suicide, but they seemed all too appropriate in a literal sense, at the moment.

Slowly, careful of the chain, Light settled down on his side and pulled the blankets up to his waist. After a few seconds' hesitation, he drew the covers up over L as well, since his friend had made no move to do so himself. Light wasn't sure if he ought to take the other's words to mean that he should be silent now, or if L was merely making an excuse - but either way, even L had to sleep occasionally, and the past few days had been taxing for both of them.

It was then, as he lay there in the quiet darkness trying to determine if he should focus on sleep or not, that Light belatedly realized just how close L had been to crying only minutes before - and the sudden understanding hit him like a blow to the stomach. He recalled the wordless shout of terror that had woken him, and could guess what sort of dream might have prompted that reaction.

He remembered what Ryuuk had said the first time he'd shown himself. "Be warned, any human who's used a Death Note can neither go to heaven nor hell, for eternity..."

_It's because there is no heaven or hell, isn't it. There's nothing..._

"Ryuuzaki..." he swallowed. "Do you want me to stay awake for a bit while you get some sleep? I could... um..." Light floundered verbally for a beat, trying and failing to come up with a believable reason for wanting to stay up. Sighing, he sat up again and shook his head, amending, "I'll just work on case research or something." It was a lame excuse, and completely transparent under the circumstances, but the alternative was admitting that he was offering to stand watch over L as he slept.

L held very still for a few moments, mulling over the words, before reaching a decision and lowering his arm from his face. He turned his head to regard Light in the darkness. "Light-kun shouldn't trouble himself on my account," he said softly, but the corners of his mouth twitched as he let his eyes close. "Wake me if... anything happens." It was a little frightening, how fast exhaustion came on once he acknowledged it at all, but it was all right, if Light was there to wake him, wasn't it? If nothing else, Light was still perversely determined to keep him alive.

Light didn't need to consider his reply. "Of course," he said, and meant it wholeheartedly. He knew exactly what L was asking him to do.

Once L was sleeping soundly, Light shifted closer and curled an arm over his companion's chest - the better to monitor his heartbeat, obviously, so that he could respond more quickly to any distress.

He wondered exactly what it was that prompted L to accept this, after the way he'd been acting. Light's thoughts wandered further - he'd accused L of failing to act on his knowledge, but was he any better? In order to bring about a better world, he needed to remove all opposition, and L was most assuredly his opposition. Did preserving L's life invalidate all his efforts as Kira? Was his new world already lost beyond reach?

Light stayed that way, wide awake, holding his friend, until long after the sun began to peek through the clouds.

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**Disclaimer: **Death Note (manga, animation, novels, etc.), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Taugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata/SHUEISHA Inc./Madhouse/DNDP/VAP, and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	6. If We Do Not Destroy Ourselves

**Authors' Note:** The title for this chapter is from the song _A Glorious Dawn _by Symphony of Science, which is the song that features in the chapter. It's a fantastic song you can find on youtube, composed of synthesized spoken clips of Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking.

Yes, we know that this song didn't come out, in real life, until a few years after the date at which this part of the story is supposed to be taking place. We love the song so much that we do not care. In this Death Note AU it totally came out a few years earlier. We decree it. XD Our L would like it enough that we want to include it regardless of pesky things like reality. (We also don't actually know if one could practice Capoeira to it; for that one we're just going to beg forgiveness/suspension of disbelief.)

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**Furious Angels I: Nameless Here Forevermore**

**Chapter 06: If We Do Not Destroy Ourselves**

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At around nine in the morning, L and Light came down to the central control room, walking closely enough that the handcuffs' chain wouldn't tug. Both were wrapped in fleece throw blankets like shawls; L also wore the scarf that Light had given him, though Light made no such effort to hide his bruised throat. They exchanged greetings with the others and sat on one of the sofas, with L sitting with his back to Light, but only so that he could draw his legs up onto the seat without having to fully crouch. Light immediately began to sift through a stack of reports that Mogi handed him; L busied himself with determining the appropriate sugar-cube-to-coffee ratio for the morning, picking bites from a cream-filled donut until it was little more than a mass of cream just barely held together by a thin shell of crumbs. Light glanced over during the process and rolled his eyes, but L only pushed the donut box on the table toward the younger man in encouragement.

By ten, Matsuda had left and miraculously returned with the key to the handcuffs. It must have somehow fallen into the cuff of his pants from the file cabinet drawer, he said, and he'd found it in the laundry.

L licked the remains of his first donut from his plate and stared at Matsuda for some time, until long after the man became a little unnerved and moved away. Neither L nor Light changed positions.

With the entire task force still under orders to remain with a partner at all times, the subject of L and Light being reassigned soon surfaced. Light was prepared to give a noncommittal answer and let L decide what to do, but to his surprise, L defended the arrangement. The handcuffs had been dramatic, he said, but had made Light-kun's point quite well, and it would be disrespectful of the young man's efforts to partner with someone else now.

Light suspected that the real reason was that L was reluctant to trust anyone else enough to monitor his sleep, and he was at least partially correct.

The rest of the day was uneventful, at least in terms of the case. Light took the opportunity to call home, and spoke with his mother for an hour or so before Sayu came home from school and talked at him for almost another hour. L sat on the building's steps for the duration, the rain having moved on for the time being. He seemed to be resting, but in truth watched intently. Familial relations - particularly Light's - were still something of a mystery to him. For all that L knew it to be primarily an act, Light appeared to be nothing but a perfectly loving son and older brother.

Light considered calling Misa, but decided that he didn't feel up to it, after that.

Of course, there was the matter of the imminent funeral to address. It had been decided amongst the team that Watari would be buried in Japan under the surname Ryuuga, though the death of famed inventor Quillish Wammy would be announced worldwide, with a certain lack of detail. L assured the task force that Watari would have found this perfectly acceptable. Only the final arrangements were left to be dealt with.

No one mourned Rem's passing, and neither Light nor L mentioned her to each other.

They slept in the same bed again that night, though getting to sleep was something of a trial for L. It was not because of nightmares or the possibility thereof, but because, just as he was drifting off, Light absently began to stroke his hair, which was enough to bring L to full, irritable wakefulness. Light seemed so embarrassed to realize that he'd been doing it at all, however, that L did not press the matter; Light stopped the moment that L opened his eyes.

With Light watching over him, L did, at least, sleep more soundly than he was accustomed to doing. It was unlike when they'd been handcuffed before, when L had spent most of the time that Light slept sorting through details of the case and watching the younger man, and it was certainly different from when L slept alone. The detective wasn't entirely sure how to categorize the experience of falling asleep with someone else in physical contact; surely to describe it as comforting did not adequately cover the complexity of the situation.

L woke just before dawn, and felt so rested that he arose, seeing to it that Light remained tucked in and resting himself. He only realized once he was awake that he had very little to do. Normally, when he felt as rested and renewed as he did this morning, he would have proceeded to work on the case immediately - but at the moment, he hadn't that option.

After several minutes of consideration, during which he opened the curtains wide to watch the dawn, he decided that it might be a good time to exercise. It was frustrating to do nothing, and he thought he felt up to the practice exercises that helped to keep the appropriate muscles limber for his Capoeira.

He set a song he particularly liked on repeat on his laptop, nodding slightly to begin to loosen himself as the hypnotic techno beat took hold.

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe..."

The synthesized voice of Carl Sagan was on its second iteration by the time the L actually began the more elaborate motions of the slow-speed practice sequence, the sky outside fading through a few pastels into a pure clear blue. The sequence drew neglected muscles from rest - it had been months - and he felt his heartbeat quicken a little with the increased blood flow, but for another play-through of the song, it felt good.

"But the brain does much more than just recollect; it inter-compares, it synthesizes, analyzes, it generates abstractions..."

Light woke to a strange, rhythmic sound and the regular thump of footfalls on carpet. It took him a little while to realize that what he was hearing was music; the song was slow and the singer's voice nearly a monotone, as well as speaking in English. Opening his eyes, Light was greeted by the stark white light that comes just after full dawn - the blinds were open, and it was a clear day with just a hint of white clouds in the sky. He turned over without sitting up, and looked past L's side of the bed to where the detective stood in the middle of the room, apparently going through some sort of exercise routine. It was strangely soothing to watch - Light found himself concentrating more on the smooth extension of a limb or the slow curl of fingers into a fist than on the routine as a whole.

L did not notice that he was being observed; nor did he realize when the routine began to change, not until he felt the tremble in his outstretched hand. That was when he noticed how heavy his heartbeat was, his fractured ribs sending twinges through him with each thumping beat.

He didn't stop, not even when the ache spiked with a low leg sweep; he ground his teeth, breathing though his nose, determined to finish. His breath was coming faster than it should, too, un-synching from the thrum of the music. But only a little more; a little longer and he'd finish the sequence. Surely he could do this...

"The sky calls to us; if we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars..."

He shook with each pounding beat of his heart, and finally opened his mouth to breathe, sweat standing out on his brow. He'd been practicing with his eyes half-closed, but now he opened them wide enough that he could see the black rapidly crawling into his vision at the edges.

And then his foot, strangely numb and clumsy, seemed to give out, and the carpeted floor suddenly rushed up to meet him.

Pushing himself up on one arm, Light started to ask L if he was all right - but the words dissolved into a shout of alarm as L's leg buckled under him and he crumpled mid-turn. Light scrambled off the bed, half-tripping into a crouch beside the other man. L lay face-down on the floor, his head turned slightly to one side, eyes closed, and for a horrifying moment Light thought he might be dead, and terror's icy grip choked off his breath.

"Ryuuzaki?" His voice was shaking so badly that he almost couldn't get the syllables past his lips.

No answer. The continuing thrum of the music seemed almost insulting.

What if he _was_ dead? What if Misa had been lying about not being able to see his true name; what if she'd decided to kill him after all? Or maybe there really was no way to save someone once their name was written in a Death Note - perhaps he'd only forestalled the inevitable. And now, now he'd be cleared of suspicion, how could any of them suspect him when he'd - oh god L was dead and he didn't want this, he didn't want to lose his best friend even if it meant he would gain everything else, and -

A tiny, choking sob rose in his throat, but Light gulped it down and forced himself to breathe, closing his eyes for a few seconds. Inhale, exhale... He laid his hands on L's back; the older man's breathing was shallow, but steady, and the knot of desperate fear in Light's stomach began to loosen. He shifted and carefully rolled L onto his back, pillowing his friend's head on his crossed legs; L's face was pale and slack, his lips parted. Light checked for a pulse in his neck, then his left wrist, and found both to be fast, but regular.

Light thought he ought to call someone, but as he moved to reposition L so that he could rise, he felt the detective stir slightly. Light hesitated, looking down at L's pallid, sweat-streaked face, and after a moment's consideration, reached for the white undershirt he'd discarded off the edge of the bed the previous evening and used it to wipe some of the sweat from L's forehead.

L's eyes opened slightly - he felt as though he'd merely blinked, and it took a moment to realize why he was suddenly positioned much differently than he expected and remember what had happened.

The knowledge was like ice water. His eyes flew wide, and he gasped loudly, tensing almost convulsively. It took another moment to realize that his head was resting in Light's lap - which explained the way Light was staring down at him, but did nothing to help him calm himself.

L finally managed to swallow, turning his head enough so that he could stare at his laptop on the floor a few feet away, rather than be forced to acknowledge the distress in Light's expression. It did little to help - Light was shaking a little, and L could feel it in Light's calf at the side of his face. He must have been terrified, L thought, but he couldn't quite wrap his mind around such a reaction coming from Light.

His chest hurt, L noticed, and he felt more than a little nauseous - and that was what solidified the explanation. He'd fainted. He'd experienced a sudden drop in blood pressure, probably brought on by overexerting himself after the trauma his body had recently undergone. Lying down was the thing to do. Getting up too quickly would only repeat the event.

...He'd fainted. He'd only fainted. L tried to push the shock of recognition of timeless black to the back of his mind.

Light seemed to be dabbing at him with some cloth; L raised his hand to wave the effort away, but the motion seemed too much, and he listlessly let his arm fall again. Light at least seemed to take the motion to indicate that he should stop, but after a moment, L only felt the younger man's fingers brushing his hair away from his face. He stared resolutely at the computer's screensaver, unable to think of anything to say; Light quickly seemed to catch himself and his hand dropped away.

L wondered at how familiar they seemed to have become - he was wearing only his sweatpants, and Light even less, the skin of his calves warm under L's currently clammy shoulders. Light had seemed to think nothing of touching him in an almost affectionate manner, even, the past two nights. And just now...

L remembered the footage from a few days ago, with Light crouched over him and screaming and counting and sobbing and breathing for him...

Well, they'd already been more intimate than this, hadn't they. After a fashion.

"Ryuuzaki?"

"I'm all right," L said belatedly, wondering just how swiftly the color might be returning to his face, and refusing to tear his gaze away from the computer. He didn't want to see the concern in Light's voice mirrored in his face. "I suppose I pushed myself harder than I should have." L tensed as though to rise, but the effort only set his heart to beating faster again, his ribs aching. His body still felt like lead. "Just... don't ask me to get up for a moment," he muttered, sagging again.

Light smiled instinctively at first, but only found his lips drawing into a tight grimace as L went on. "I know you're not used to taking it easy," he said quietly, his eyes focused just to the left of L's face, somewhere on the floor, "but you can't push yourself like this." Light's eyes guiltily darted across his friend's features, then away again. The younger man hesitated, moistening his lips with a flick of his tongue - and then he asked the question that had leapt, unbidden and unwelcome, into his mind. "Were you being honest when you said that I was the first friend you'd ever had? Because... I was..." he swallowed, still staring hard at the floor. "I was lying then, I'm sure you know that, but..." he trailed off helplessly.

The admonishment fell on relatively deaf ears; L was not one to take such advice no matter how well he knew it to be true. But the rest...

The thrum of the song restarted again, the laptop still playing it on continuous loop. A barely-edited spoken clip of Carl Sagan began the piece. "I'm not very good at singing songs but ah, here's a, here's a try..."

Still staring off toward the computer and, beyond, the morning sun spilling through the window, L swallowed. Part of him was unwilling to answer, or to answer truthfully. It would be so easy to lie, one way or the other, and manipulate the situation as he saw fit. _Absolutely, Light-kun_, or _Not really, no_, or maybe _When did I say that? _as though he were trying to protect himself, although he remembered the moment perfectly well. Maybe _You think I was lying?_ It might be interesting to see where Light took things from that last option...

"I don't know," L murmured, and - perhaps because he wasn't thinking about the action - he was able to lift his hand to his mouth, so that he could worry at his thumbnail between his teeth. "I don't really have a frame of reference, you see. It felt like..." _feels like..._ "Like being near my family. But different. Stronger, and I like it better. There are certainly people I'm... fond of, I suppose, but you... I prefer your company. I'm not sure how to categorize it, other than friendship."

L finally looked up at Light from the corner of his eye, without moving his head. He disliked making himself vulnerable, and honesty rarely led to anything else, but what did it matter at this point? Light's usually smooth speech patterns were disrupted enough that L was certain of his current honesty. He could believe that Light valued him in some way, at present; it made sense that he might try to use their friendship to convince L to better care for himself.

"The truth is, I've never really had a close friend," Light said, and L felt as though something constricted about his neck. For a moment he thought of the scarf that Light had given him, but it lay across the back of a chair on the far side of the room, neatly folded in half.

"So I guess I don't really know how," Light went on. He worried at the inside of his cheek for a moment, his gaze finally drifting back to L with a soft but somewhat wry smile. "I've never known anyone I _could_ be completely honest with. There was never anyone like... like me..."

He shifted a little, leaning to one side to reach for a pillow that had been knocked off the bed in his hurry to get to L. Light set it against his leg, signaling his intention to get up soon - but he hesitated, opening his mouth as if to speak and then closing it again.

"I guess I thought you'd find a way out," he admitted after a moment, looking down at L and then away, sighing. "I wanted to win, but... I didn't want the game to be over." He swallowed. "I prefer your company, too."

From the computer's built-in speakers, the song was still playing. "The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths..."

L thought that he really should shut down the music player at some point. "Perhaps you shouldn't have cheated, then."

The detective felt Light go satisfyingly tense, his voice losing all softness. "What?"

L made no move to change position. "You cheated."

"What are you talking about?" Light's hand clenched tight on the pillow.

"Shinigami."

Light abruptly shifted back, yanking his legs out from under L's head, which bumped the floor, the pillow falling over his face.

"Just stay there," Light grumbled, getting to his feet and crossing the room to retrieve his cellphone. "I have to make a call." He didn't bother with the pretense of leaving the suite - L's phone worked within the building despite his decree against them, anyway - and instead simply went out onto the balcony.

L lay still with the pillow over his face for a few minutes, until the song restarted. Then he tossed the pillow aside and dragged himself to the laptop to shut down the music player.

As his call rang through, Light glanced over at L's movement, and thought of the abject terror that he'd seen in L's eyes when he had awoken. It had been the first time that Light had clearly seen the detective succumb to such a primal emotion - the other night, he'd only been woken by the effects.

It was so much more disturbing than Light wanted to admit. The dark, L had said. "You have no idea, do you, Kira... the dark... and all you do..."

Light was grateful for the distraction when the phone picked up. After months of doling out punishments as Kira, regret seemed an entirely alien emotion.

The rest of the day was relatively quiet, or rather, another day in which L was fairly quiet, trying to unobtrusively look for information tangentially related to the case on his laptop. Being unable to return to the case proper was eating away at him, but he'd resolved to be patient - the funeral was tomorrow, after all, and the day after that, he could overtly work again.

L caught Aizawa talking animatedly about the "disastrous" dessert his daughter had decided to make after supper the night before - something involving red bean jam, pretzels, and gelatin - but as had been the case for days, such pleasant chatter ceased when it was noticed that L was present. It was as though the other task force members were afraid to exhibit in front of him that they were not in mourning the way they expected him to be - as though that were disrespectful, rather than natural. L wondered how he ought to address the misconception, but had no idea of where to begin, and didn't even know whom he might turn to for advice.

In deference to the impending funeral, the task force dismissed a little early - around six o'clock instead of later, for once - and L and Light returned to their suite. Weddy had seen to it that the kitchen was stocked enough that they could fend for themselves - "Make your own damned waffles", had been her exact wording - before she too had retired for the night.

Only then did L allow himself to wonder about Light's behavior during the day - there had been the call, and another a few hours later, with L patiently trailing along just closely enough that they could let the other task force members believe that they weren't separated. Light kept glancing to L as though for permission; L allowed him the slight privacy, as it seemed clear that he'd find out eventually what Light was doing.

Close monitoring of news sites and the police database, from his laptop, revealed that Kira was still entirely quiet, anyway.

HR

The alarm clock was set for 10:45 PM, but Light didn't need its shrill reminder; he was already dressed in the clothes he intended to wear, dark jeans and a black turtleneck and old tennis shoes.

Light stood, stretched, and closed his laptop on the desk, running through his mental checklist. The second call had been to confirm that all he'd asked had been done, so everything should be ready now.

Outside, rain pattered against the windows, coming down steadily but not very hard. "Ryuuzaki," he called across the room, raising his voice just enough to be heard over the rain. "Put some shoes on. We're going somewhere."

* * *

**Disclaimer: **Death Note (manga, animation, novels, etc.), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Taugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata/SHUEISHA Inc./Madhouse/DNDP/VAP, and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	7. Take This Book In Your Hand

**Authors' Note:** The title for this chapter is from the song _Graveyard Picnic _by Voltaire. The song isn't entirely appropriate, of course, but has the right feel, so far as I'm concerned. Also, Voltaire is awesome. :)

* * *

**Furious Angels I: Nameless Here Forevermore**

**Chapter 07: Take This Book In Your Hand**

* * *

L looked up and tilted his head when the alarm went off, wondering at first how it had gotten set for this hour, then - as Light began to move - wondering why.

"Put some shoes on. We're going somewhere." Light still wasn't entirely sure if L would humor him long enough to find out what he was planning, but was betting that he would. If nothing else, L was insatiably curious. Besides, having already died once by Kira's hand, he stood to lose very little by trusting Light this once - while Light, by comparison, had everything to gain.

L hesitated only a moment, staring. Then he closed his laptop and, from his position sitting cross-legged on the bed, twisted and turned upside-down to reach the aging gray sneakers beneath. Without untying them, L pushed his feet inside, stomping into them as he stood.

While he waited for L to retrieve his shoes, Light went to the nearest window and glanced out. The sky was a sickly yellow-grey, light pollution reflecting against low clouds, though it looked as though the rain might let up soon.

"You're going to want something warm," Light said, selecting a dark, padded jacket from the rows of outerwear hanging in the closet and holding it out to the other man. "This should fit you."

L looked through his hair at the jacket offered him, but reached out and took it without argument. The moment he'd finished struggling into it, he expectantly jammed his hands into the pockets and waited for Light's instructions. Clearly they were to go outside for a while. "Should I pack a lunch?"

The question made Light smile a bit. "I told my father we'd be visiting the shrine tonight," he said, neither addressing L's question nor giving him any relevant information. "If we're missed, it won't look suspicious."

L tilted his head, wondering if anyone would notice that Watari was receiving a western-style funeral and burial, and that it was therefore actually rather unlikely that he himself would go to a shrine on his surrogate father's behalf. Mogi might notice, he decided, but Mogi was rather good at keeping his mouth shut - something that L was coming to appreciate about the man more and more. As his going out with Light would not seem problematic in itself, though, it was unlikely that anyone on the task force would openly question the excuse.

L picked up an old paperback from his bedside stand on the way out of the room - a mid-80s copy of _The Hobbit_. The cover was torn and almost coming off, the spine so creased that the title there could not be read. L had read it before, and he read very quickly, but he'd intended to take his time with it this night. He remembered Wammy reading it to him, a few excruciatingly slow chapters at a time, as a bedtime story, almost twenty years before.

He jammed the book into the jacket's pocket - it was clear how the cover had come to be in such bad shape - and followed Light, head down, silent.

The rain had tapered to nearly nothing by the time they left headquarters. No one stopped them, and it was only a short walk through the rain-slicked streets to the nearest train station, where they arrived in time for the eleven-forty train bound for the suburbs. As it was a weeknight, it was not empty, even being one of the last trains out, but there was plenty of room to sit, and the car only became increasingly empty as they went on.

After more than an hour, the train slowed for a stop; Light shifted and prepared to rise, laying down the newspaper he'd passed the time reading and leaving it for the next bored passenger just as he'd found it. At that point there was only one other in the car - a tired-looking man in a suit with an unobtrusive stain on a lapel, likely a young salary-man with a family - and that man had long since ceased to cast curious glances their way at all.

L set his feet on the floor, uncurling from his perch in the seat next to Light, and closed the paperback - he'd been holding it up to read with one hand, the other arm wrapped around his shins. He stuffed the book back into the jacket pocket as he followed Light again. Perhaps, to an observer, it might seem odd that they were so clearly traveling together, but barely conversed at all - but L reminded himself that it was unlikely that anyone was watching.

Their stop was at the very outskirts of the city, the station deserted. It was still raining fitfully here, but patches of clear sky were visible between the clouds as they descended to the empty street. The moon stared down at them like the empty eye of a fish.

Light wasn't entirely certain, for once, that this was the right course of action - but for right or wrong, after tonight, it would be very difficult to undo what was about to be done. He could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, its frantic tempo punctuated by each step he took, but he couldn't deny that part of him was relieved at having made this decision.

L only followed. He knew where they were going, by that point. He'd known as soon as he'd seen the train they were taking; he'd memorized the commuter rail lines for the city early on in the case. The question of why, however, still remained.

Walking at a quick clip, they made good time from the station to their destination. The rain finally stopped entirely, leaving the air heavy with the rich, clean scent of wet earth, fog rising from the ground to swirl around their feet as they trudged up to the old brick wall that guarded the sleeping residents of the cemetery.

"Here." Light scrambled up onto the wall and extended a hand to his companion. "The bricks are mossy up here - be careful not to slip."

L watched, and stared up at Light, pulling one hand from his pocket so as to gnaw at his thumb. The cemetery gate was down the block, but it had surveillance cameras; Light did not want their entry to be seen. Curiouser and curiouser.

"Perhaps it's just that it's an aspect of Japanese culture with which I am less familiar," he responded dryly, peering up at Light like an owl, shoulders still stooped. "But I was unaware of how exciting going to a shrine could be. I appreciate your going to all this effort on my account."

Rather than taking Light's hand, he took a few steps back, stepped on the heels of his sneakers to pull his feet free, and ran forward. His momentum carried him two steps up the wall itself, enough for him to grab the top and haul himself up. It tensed the muscles in his shoulders and chest more than they had for a while now, and he suspected that they might hurt later, but for now he was still under the influence of the last dose of painkiller he'd taken for his ribs and he could simply enjoy the activity.

L could easily differentiate the sensations of rain-damp brick, mortar, and moss under his toes, and adjusted his balance and stance accordingly, perching on the top of the wall for a moment before swinging a leg over to sit facing Light.

His heart was beating a little fast, but he took deep breaths, successfully quieting himself. "It's nice out," L said, scenting disturbed moss and wet foliage and earth and clear cool air. He really was a little grateful, he decided - he'd intended to stay in their darkened room the entire night, reading, but his head felt clearer now than it had in days. His lips tightened a little, as though on another night, he might smile. "We should go out more often."

Light scowled at the display, letting his hand drop, but he let the expression relax as L situated himself. The detective seemed to be in better spirits than he'd expected. "Hopefully we'll only have to do this once," the brunette replied, flashing a thin smile. "Come on." He turned and let himself down from the wall, grunting as he landed and nearly slid on the slippery grass and the mud at its base. Straightening, he glanced around to get his bearings, then gestured for L to follow.

L landed lightly on his toes, falling into a crouch for a moment to soften the landing before he followed Light, hands in his pockets again. The wet lawn was cold - it was November, after all - but he curled his toes around the blades of grass as he walked, digging into the earth a little, enjoying the feel of it. The temperature began to sting, and his feet would numb before long, but L didn't mind at all.

It was quiet, but for the sound of their feet in the grass. It wasn't a large cemetery, and despite being well maintained, there was a lonely air to the place - there were no flowers beside the gravestones, no balloons or toys commemorating birthdays and anniversaries, no incense or food offerings for the dead.

Western-style graveyards were rare in Japan, and a stark contrast to what Light was accustomed to - but perhaps because of the hour and the atmosphere, it seemed especially lonely to L as well, as though there were no one to remember those buried here. L reminded himself that Wammy had _liked_ Japan, and his alias Watari; he wouldn't mind being laid to rest here at all, even if there were no one to come keep his memory.

L lowered his eyes to watch his moonlit feet instead as he walked. Perhaps it was only the dark and mist that hid the signs of remembrance.

"Should be here," Light murmured, skirting the edge of a few fenced plots until he came to a large maple tree. Hidden in the piled leaves at its base was an old gray-green backpack. Light crouched and unzipped it, inspecting the contents for a moment as L looked over his shoulder, then nodding in satisfaction and closing it again. The only item he'd removed was a hand trowel.

"One down." He slung the heavy pack over his shoulder and lead L up a row of headstones and toward a life-sized marble angel, her wings wrapped protectively around an infant in her arms. "Thought it might draw too much attention to have them in the same place..."

He halted when they reached the statue, and knelt to inspect the gravel at its base, taking off the backpack for the moment. On the east side the stones seemed to have been densely piled; he brushed them away to reveal a patch of slightly disturbed earth. Using the trowel, Light carefully began to remove small amounts of dirt, working slowly and laying each shovel-full off to one side so that he could fill in the hole again when he'd finished.

L stared over his shoulder again, tapping at his lower lip. The backpack had contained the trowel, a large flashlight (that they'd yet to use - currently the moonlight was sufficient), a container half-full of a little gravel and some sort of gray powder, several bottles of water, and a length of metal pipe. It seemed that Light intended to bury something in a concrete seal. As to just what that might be... well, that would be obvious, except that it seemed intriguingly outside of what L expected of Light.

It only took a few minutes for Light to expose what was buried below the statue: a large paper envelope with a brad closure inside a clear plastic bag. Lifting it carefully from the shallow hole, Light wiped dirt from the bag with the back of his hand. He used one foot to push most of the piled soil back into the pit and tamped it down with the sole of his shoe, and scuffed the gravel back over the spot.

"You carry this; I'll get the backpack," Light said, handing the bag to L, who gingerly took it by the corner with thumb and forefinger. He shouldered the heavy pack.

Light led the way to the newer part of the cemetery, across the driveway and past the small building that housed cremated remains. Of course, by that point, L knew where they were going.

Watari's waiting grave was a fresh wound carved out of the earth. Next to it, the earth from inside was covered with a dull green tarp, as though it might be camouflaged from the eyes of the funeral attendees in the morning.

Strange how a mere hole in the ground could be so foreboding.

"I'm sorry," Light said as they came to a stop beside the rectangular pit. "I know this must be difficult for you."

L didn't like the hole being empty. It reminded him of the ritual farewell he was going to go through the next day, and he wanted to be done with that already, the hole covered over. He was certain, however, that Light's apology was based entirely on societal expectations rather than sincerity, and only gave a noncommittal grunt in response.

Light set the backpack on the ground and reached for the bag in L's hands without looking - he was staring down into the grave. L glanced down at the bag, then at Light's outstretched hand, wondering at the assumption that he'd merely hand it over, given the only possible contents.

After a moment, Light looked up again, lowering his hand. "All right then, you open it," he sighed.

L held up the plastic bag and slid one thin finger beneath the adhesive strip that kept it closed, and withdrew the envelope, which he opened. It contained two familiar black, deceptively simple notebooks.

"I'm going to need you to keep watch while I mix the concrete," Light said, crouching at the backpack and unzipping it again.

L crouched as well, inspecting the notebooks. It seemed unlikely that they were fake - what would be the purpose of this exercise if that were so? That would leave it too easy to disprove any potential sincerity to this gesture.

What was the point, then? L looked up at Light, who was intent on his task, adding water to the container of powder and gravel and stirring with the metal pipe. Kira, turning over his murder weapon? He would only do that if he had more in reserve, L was certain. Neither was Kira relinquishing the notebooks all together and ceasing to exist (again, L was certain). This was clever - this was a semi-permanent method of hiding the notebooks in a location only Kira would know, sealed in concrete at the bottom of a grave.

Only Kira and L. The meaning here lay not in hiding the notebooks, but in sharing the knowledge of their location. Did Kira seek to implicate him? Tempt him?

Of course, there were only the two notebooks that the Task Force had taken possession of. Misa still had hers. This was little more than a gesture, L thought, paging to the last written-on page of Rem's notebook and staring down at his own name. This was...

He glanced up. In doing this, in bringing L to witness, was Light saying that he was giving up his identity as Kira, intending to keep his memory?

L tapped at his lip, still staring at Light. The notebooks' vault alarm hadn't gone off, so false notebooks must have been left in the vault in place of these real ones, all without opening the vault. That seemed to be easily within a Shinigami's abilities; not even Wedy was capable of such a feat. And he'd made certain that only he had seen that final page bearing his own name, so it followed that these must indeed be the notebooks from the vault.

It followed, however, that a Shinigami could easily retrieve these notebooks from their burial as well, at any time. Once again, all precautions for the safety of the Task Force were pointless - there was a second Shinigami clearly in play. Given that Light had made calls that day - to Misa's number, L knew that much - the second Shinigami would seem to be attached to Misa (or rather, to her notebook).

The hounds of the wild hunt could have passed them, and L wouldn't have batted an eye, despite supposedly keeping watch. "I don't know what you hope to accomplish in doing this," he admitted, his thumb wandering to his lips.

Light glanced up. "I'd think that would be obvious."

"These could be fake," L suggested. "You could be doing this simply to try to secure my trust."

Without hesitation, Light reached to an inside jacket pocket and withdrew a pen, which he held out to his companion. "Test them."

"And fall victim to the 13-day rule?" L feigned surprise, then narrowed his eyes. "Didn't Rem die to prevent that from being questioned?" He didn't comment on who he'd be expected to test them on.

Light shrugged, putting the pen away. "Take some pages from each and test them later then, however you want," he suggested. He was certain that L knew full well by now that the 13-day rule had been made up.

L stared down at the notebooks lying in front of him on the ground, and placed his hands on his knees, tilting his head in thought. So pages alone were enough. Probably only pieces of pages would suffice, too - he thought of the torn-off corner in the notebook they'd taken from Higuchi. Light was deliberately giving him all the information necessary to explain every facet of the case, at this point. Why did Light keep handing him power over Kira? "Why are you doing this?"

Light paused, looking down into the pitch-black grave. "They'll be very difficult to retrieve, if they ever are. I thought that might... give us time."

With trust and time, perhaps L would begin to see that Kira was necessary - would begin to appreciate what good could come from a righteous god passing judgment on the criminal element, Light thought. Or maybe he wouldn't, and Light would end up sentenced to death... But there would be no resolution either way without some time to think.

That had been Light's decision, and why he'd had Misa and Ryuuk make the fake notebooks and swap them into the vault and leave the real notebooks and the supplies he'd listed in the cemetery. If it was to be up to Light, as L had said when they'd retrieved Rem's Death Note from the server room, then Light chose to prolong the decision; this was a gesture of good faith, signifying that Kira would remain silent in the mean time.

Besides, L needed more time to recover than he'd allow himself without being tricked into delay. And this way, there could be no pressure from the Task Force - with Kira quiet, the case would be at a standstill, once they found that the notebooks in the vault were fake.

"You want me to trust you," L said, his voice flat and dangerously unimpressed.

Light lifted his head, smiling. "It's important that friends trust one another." He looked down into the grave again. "Once I'm done down there, can I trust you to help me back out?"

L closed his eyes. Kira had done so much that was unforgivable. Kira had to be punished. But Kira was no one person; Kira was an ability, passed between people, and when it left, the person it left was utterly innocent and remembered nothing.

He opened his eyes again. At this moment, Light was indisputably Kira. He hadn't been for a while, but once he'd become so again, he'd killed - even if he'd not done so with his own hands, he'd manipulated others to do so, and he most assuredly had killed before as well.

L was going to have to decide if Light, as Kira, would be punished, or if he was going to give Light the opportunity to put Kira behind him. That would take relinquishing the notebooks and losing his memory, but he would likely have to work his way to that point, and it would take time.

And Light was offering that time himself, though he likely hoped for a different result. L wondered if Light expected him to compromise himself entirely and side with Kira.

Still crouched, L glanced at the headstone at the far end of the grave, just barely able to make out the name they'd created for it - Ryuuga Watari. He bit at his lower lip, and thought that his intended course of action should not feel so comfortable, and that he'd likely regret this decision later.

"Of course, Light-kun," he finally answered, with his customary straight face. "You've got my return rail pass. I don't think I could walk the entire way back in my current condition." The night was passing swiftly; another hour, more or less, and his pain medication would begin wear off. Best to be on the way back by then.

Light gave a snort - almost a laugh - and L thought that he shouldn't feel so pleased at that response. He remained crouched, flexing his toes a little in the muddy grass at the edge of the grave as Light let himself down inside, then handed him the concrete and the flashlight. While Light dug out a space with the trowel and laid a bottom layer of concrete, L carefully tore a page from each of the notebooks - a blank page, and the page with his and Watari's names - and folded them and placed them in his back pocket. Then he tucked the notebooks back into their envelope and plastic bag, just as Light reached up for it.

A little dirt over the wet concrete once Light finished, and no one but they would know what lay beneath.

And when the time came, L shifted to all fours, dirt staining the knees of his jeans, and reached down with one hand to help Light pull himself out of the grave.

It began to rain again as they walked back to the train station - a soft, misty sort of rain that was more like an especially wet fog. The two walked side by side, Light leading by half a pace, the considerably lightened backpack slung over one shoulder. L followed, barefoot - that he'd forgotten to try to retrieve his shoes was the only visible sign of how preoccupied he was.

They were just in time for the first of the morning trains. Their only company on the ride was an older man, asleep with his hat over his face, and a few early commuters on their way to work. If any of them paid much attention to Light and L, they were careful not to be caught doing so - and no wonder, Light mused, looking over their mud- and grass-strained clothes and his companion's bare feet.

L's last dose of pain medication for his ribs had worn off enough by the time the train was underway that he huddled in the seat with his muddy feet on the floor. He stared blankly at the grooved tread of the train car's center aisle, eyes half-closed, and rested without sleeping. His book remained in his pocket, though he kept his hand there, touching the paperback as though for comfort.

The notion that they were friends kept catching in his mind. L had known it to be a lie before, but had found it a comfortable charade; it seemed that Light had come to prefer the lie as well. And it was sealed now, wasn't it, with strange paper in concrete. Rather than denouncing Light as Kira and forcing his capture, L had chosen to begin a new game with him. They'd no choice now but to wear away at each other.

L realized belatedly that with no scarf, the fading bruises on his neck were likely perfectly visible, unlike those on Light's throat, which were hidden by his shirt. While it made his chest ache a little more, L tried to huddle down so that the collar of his coat might hide the discolorations. Light shifted as well - toward him, and L accepted the support, leaning so that their shoulders touched.

Neither said a word.

By the time they arrived at their station, the light rain had stopped, but dawn had not yet broken. The sidewalks were dark and deserted, though even at this hour there was a moderate amount of traffic - honest salary-men on their way to work, Light thought wryly, wondering how many of them really were honest. It was so easy to see corruption wherever one looked...

And then he caught movement in his peripheral vision, and turned a little, and smiled.

L's tired eyes looked back, dark-ringed as ever and shadowed beneath damp hair. The detective couldn't bring himself to smile; the medication had worn off enough that breathing was beginning to feel like dull fire was involved.

Headquarters was, as always, so silent as to seem utterly devoid of life, save for the retired policewoman who worked nights cleaning up for the team. They slipped past while she was emptying the wastebaskets from the ground-floor bathroom, depositing their dirty jackets in her laundry cart as they went and covering them with the clothing already there. The security cameras would record their arrival, of course, but Light had said they'd go to a shrine, after all. The mud on their clothes was from a scuffle, perhaps; L had already proven to be volatile in his grief.

It wasn't until they were safely back in their shared room - their _safe_ room, devoid of cameras and audio bugs - that Light let out the breath he felt he'd been holding all day. As he swung the backpack down and nudged it out of the way with his foot, L passed him, proceeding directly to the bedside stand on the side of the bed he'd adopted.

L carefully laid down the battered paperback, but his movements were unusually quick as he fought open the medicine bottle from the bedside stand's top drawer. He swallowed two of the large pills dry, choking a little.

"Are you alright?" Light asked, glancing back at L without making direct eye contact. He began to strip out of his shoes and pants, shivering slightly from the chill of wearing damp clothes. "We've got a few hours before we have to get ready, if you want to sleep after your shower."

"I'm fine," L responded automatically, putting the bottle away. He didn't feel that he was lying - he had everything under control. He stood, straighter than was usual for him because of the pain, head bowed. "I didn't intend to sleep." He thought of the warm water washing the grave-dirt from between his toes. "Mind if I go first?"

By the time he'd showered, the medication had kicked in, and L was able to sit comfortably curled over himself at the head of the bed, warmed by the morning sun pouring in through the window. He paid absolutely no attention to the time - someone, probably Light, would tell him when it was time to get ready, obviously - and instead focused on finishing the novel.

When it was his turn to shower, Light had intended to wash and rinse quickly, so that he might have time to doze a bit before they needed to begin dressing for the funeral - but instead, he found himself leaning against the warm tile, lost in thought. For the first fifteen minutes, he only moved to turn up the hot water twice, so that the air became so heavy with steam that it felt thick when he inhaled.

He should have been thinking about his next move - about how to continue Kira's work within the bounds he'd now set himself. But he couldn't seem to focus on anything but L, and how much he seemed to be suffering, both physically and mentally. It was maddening.

But it was still a challenge, and a dangerous one. The real task now would be to convince L of Kira's necessity... hopefully without hurting him any more than he already had.

* * *

**Disclaimer: **Death Note (manga, animation, novels, etc.), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Taugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata/SHUEISHA Inc./Madhouse/DNDP/VAP, and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	8. Tell Me When You Hear My Silence

**Authors' Note:** The title for this chapter is from the song _Possibility _by Lykke Li. The instrumental _The Wild Goose Flaps Its Wings_ by Mike Oldfield is also good here.

* * *

**Furious Angels I: Nameless Here Forevermore**

**Chapter 08: Tell Me When You Hear My Silence**

* * *

It was late when Light emerged from the bathroom, clouds of steam billowing around him. He had dried his hair, but wore nothing but a towel around his shoulders and a pair of boxers. His dress clothes were hanging in the closet in neat plastic garment bags alongside the suit that L was to wear.

"Feeling any better?" He asked, trying (and failing) to pull together a smile for his companion; he wasn't really asking about the pain of L's broken ribs, but left it open to be taken that way. He didn't wait for an answer, however, instead crossing the room and opening the closet so as to begin to lay articles of clothing one by one on the bed.

There didn't seem to be a pair of dress shoes to go with L's suit.

When L made no response, Light prompted, "We should really start getting dressed now, Ryuuzaki." He looked at the clock, confirming the statement to himself. Then, with a hint of concern slipping into his voice, "Have you eaten anything yet?"

The detective finally grunted, moving to swing his legs over the side of the bed as he continued reading (only another few pages to go). Only when he finished the book did he lay it on the bedside stand and look up at Light. "Not hungry," he said, responding to the last comment first and immediately following the incongruous statement with "I'm fine."

He pulled his feet back up onto the bed so as to crawl and perch over the clothes intended for him, and picked at the garment bag of the shirt with his thumb and forefinger. This could easily be the worst part of the day. "I don't see why I can't just wear what I usually do," L mumbled, though the person with whom he really wished to register the complaint had been dead for days now. He could count the number of times he'd been forced to wear a suit on the fingers of one hand, and the last time, he'd still been in junior sizes. That Watari had left provision for this seemed more of a parting jab than anything else. He was sure there'd be uncomfortable shoes waiting for him somewhere along the line as well, delivered separately - if he'd gotten them in advance he might have arranged to lose them.

The younger man watched as L inspected the clothing - as suspicious as a cat of its new carrier - and left the obvious answer unsaid: one was supposed to dress well for a funeral as a gesture of respect for the departed (though he barely remembered the experience from two of his grandparents himself). Under the circumstances, Light supposed he ought to feel guilty attending at all, but he'd had no actual grudge against Quillsh Wammy. The old man had simply been in the way.

"Just put the clothes on," Light sighed, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly at the look this garnered him. "Do it for my father's sake. You're meeting my family this afternoon, remember?" He wondered, as he dressed, how his mother and sister would react to L - to Ryuuga Ryuuzaki, rather, as that was the name L would be taking for this new role. He would be Ryuuga Watari's son, Light's friend and classmate. After all, Light's mother already knew him as one of her son's school friends - L had been introduced to her as "Ryuuga-kun" when he'd joined Light in visiting Soichiro in the hospital.

As he began to pull on his shirt, Light surreptitiously took a couple of individually-wrapped mochi cakes from the tray of sweets on the

computer desk and slipped them into his pants pocket. Whether L would feel up to eating them later was debatable, but it couldn't hurt to have them on hand. It was a little disturbing - Light couldn't remember someone else's state, physical or mental, ever before concerning him so much. "It'll be over soon enough," he added, hoping his companion would take the statement as sympathy rather than sarcasm - or worse, as a threat.

"Over soon enough," L echoed, distinctly sullen for all that his expression seemed as neutral as usual. "So you say..."

The detective had tried to decline, but Soichiro had been adamant that L dine with his family after the funeral. It seemed that his wife had somehow gotten wind of the situation, and, knowing that the displaced Western-style funeral would be lacking much of the comfort that Light's friend would consider customary, she'd taken it upon herself to try to contribute what she could. It was a testament to the power of the woman he'd married that Soichiro hadn't been able to argue against the plan himself.

L planned to try again to get out of it anyway. The last thing he wanted was to have to spend a few hours in uninformed company, keeping himself in-character. He didn't really feel up to it today, he thought, and Soichiro would be upset if he simply dropped the act and told Light's mother and sister exactly who he was. Or who Light was, for that matter.

The thought of wrecking things like that was oddly attractive, and L entertained the destructive notion for a little while as he fidgeted with getting the clothing unpackaged. The situation might even be salvageable afterward. Soichiro would never allow him near his family again, not after having to tell them that Ryuuga-kun had been unhinged with grief - as good an excuse as any. And Light...

Light looked over at L and frowned at the lack of progress. "Ryuuzaki, if I have to put your clothes on you myself, I'll do it. And where _are_ your shoes?"

...Light was threatening to dress him. L stared skeptically at the other man for a few moments, then finally moved to put the cool dark grey suit on. Fine, he'd wear the suit, and he'd wear the shoes (wherever they might be), even though they were bound to be painfully uncomfortable. Maybe he'd even wear the tie. Maybe. He looked askance at the narrow black length of silk that seemed all too intent upon becoming a noose. But damned if he'd wear those socks. L shuddered. "The shoes are probably waiting downstairs," he muttered.

"Where you can't destroy them beforehand, am I right?" Light asked, almost laughing. Some other time, he decided, he'd have to ask L just why he'd such an aversion to footwear.

He'd never do this again, L decided as he fought for a good few minutes trying to get the shirt sleeves to feel properly placed inside the jacket sleeves. Watari had always allowed him to dress as he pleased, for the most part, so he'd dress as the man had wanted just this one last time. But he was certain that there would never be anyone else that could command such a gesture of him.

Sadly, as L looped the black strip around his neck, he realized that while he could tie a hangman's knot with his eyes closed, he'd no idea whatsoever of how one tied a tie. Perhaps he'd not wear it after all.

As Light finished buttoning up his dress shirt and reached for his own tie, he watched his friend out of the corner of his eye. For all that L seemed to hate the idea of wearing formal clothes, he wasn't actually refusing to do so - and that said a lot about his feelings for the deceased.

L had never really elaborated on what their relationship had been. As Watari, the old man had been a proxy, a servant, L's right hand - even a sharpshooter in the take-down of the Yotsuba Kira. As Quillsh Wammy, he was an accomplished and wealthy inventor and humanitarian. There had clearly been a great deal of trust between them - an almost familial level of it. And while L had mentioned "family" once or twice, he had never specified any individual member - no siblings, no aunts or uncles, no mother or father. It seemed likely that he had looked to Watari as a father figure in the absence of his real parents, whatever the reason for that absence was. As much as he obviously valued the few people he could call friends, more than he'd apparently admit to even when that friendship was a lie, it was possible that L's biological family was dead or estranged...

Light shrugged on his jacket - matte black, a few shades darker than L's, to match his black slacks, shoes, and tie - and adjusted his shirt sleeves before inspecting himself in the mirror out of habit, even while lost in thought. In the reflection, he caught sight of L fumbling with his tie. A smile tugged at the younger man's lips.

"Ryuuzaki..." Crossing the room again, Light brushed his friend's hands away from the length of black silk. "Here. Let me show you." A few deft motions had the knot formed and properly dimpled, and Light slid it up to L's collar.

L wasn't about to tell Light that he couldn't really see how the knot of the tie was done, from the angle - he'd never be wearing a suit again, so it hardly mattered. It wasn't until his companion slid the tie tight that he really took notice of what was happening, and he tensed with a sudden involuntary urge to defend himself.

Light's hands lingered awkwardly at his throat, and L swallowed, staring blankly just over the other man's shoulder. The unexpected sense of having allowed himself to be subjugated overshadowed the mildly uncomfortable constriction, and his lips parted a little in shock. How horrifyingly complacent had he become, to allow another - much less this other - so much opportunity? He'd left himself wide open...

The moment passed without incident, other than L's heart beating a little faster, and Light moved again, loosening the tie a little. "Don't worry," he said, his voice dropping down to a breath, "it's only for a day." The younger man gave a slightly lopsided smile, almost as though apologizing. "You know, you and Matsuda wear the same size shoe... and he keeps a pair of jogging shoes in his locker downstairs. But you didn't hear it from me."

Light was being... almost mischievous, L thought. Like a co-conspirator. Like a friend. He blinked and stared unashamedly at the curious way that Light was smiling - awkward, sheepish, almost... almost honest.

"I didn't hear anything," L said quietly as Light turned away. Oddly entranced, as though observing something he'd never seen before, the detective watched as Light bent and put on his own dress shoes.

L shook out his arms a little, still trying to make the sleeves feel right, and unconsciously settled into his customary slouch, hands moving to his pants pockets. He considered for a moment, raising a hand to tap at his lower lip, then walked into the bathroom to look for a hairbrush. He was sure there'd been one left there for him, though he'd never used it.

He couldn't find it and ended up using Light's anyway. Dragging it through his thick hair felt strange - the way his hair pulled at his scalp always seemed a prickly sensory overload, not so much annoying as distracting, hence why he generally avoided brushing or combing if he could. But he knew full well that if he didn't, he'd simply appear even more out of place, given what he was wearing; if he were to wear the suit, he'd try to complete the look, within reason. He at least had to appear to care that he might be noticed if the funeral were being observed by, say, Kira.

His hair still didn't entirely cooperate, but at least it smoothed down a bit and didn't stick out so much. He even got his bangs to stay clear of his face, for a few minutes at least.

L wasn't used to studying himself in mirrors. He wasn't fond of his reflection; it meant very little to him, beyond having been uncomfortably important to others in the past. But in this instance he did look, as he awkwardly groomed himself. What stood out to him was not the state of his hair, but the bruises - a fading purple, lined with sallow green as they healed - that showed above the collar of his shirt.

Without hesitation, L left the bathroom and retrieved the scarf that Light had given him, winding it loosely about his neck. It had enough body to hide the marks, even with the suit, and he found that it seemed comfortable now, compared to the tie - or the way the scarf itself had felt when he'd first put it on in the hospital, days ago.

Light looked up from fastening his watch when L emerged from the bathroom - and blinked in surprise at the sight that met him. He'd never before seen the other man with his hair freshly brushed; it was always relatively clean, just never maintained in any other discernable way, and the change seemed rather jarring. Self-conscious now, Light absently passed a hand through his own hair, which was as orderly as always.

"Ready," L said, and Light nodded. They left the room together, and walked side-by-side down the hall to the elevator in comfortable silence, Light's shoes clicking on the tile.

L was still entirely barefoot.

* * *

As it turned out, L's shoes were waiting in the rented car, still in their box and wrapped in tissue paper - brand new, shiny black, and obviously expensive. Light feigned a cough to cover his amusement as he watched the detective's reaction to them, and he could have sworn he caught a hint of a smile on his father's face as Soichiro took the wheel and guided the black rental limousine sedan out of the parking garage.

They reached the cemetery a little after nine; the service was to begin at nine-forty-five. The three of them waited in the parking lot for the other car to arrive with Aizawa, Mogi, and Matsuda, and then they walked the short distance to the front gate as a group. Aiber and Wedy were set to arrive separately.

Noticing a pair of worn sneakers near the cemetery's brick wall, Soichiro scowled and muttered something about "disrespectful young people." Light glanced at L, but L was carefully looking in the opposite direction.

There were no concurrent funerals, and only a few people visiting graves this morning. Most were plainclothes police officers, Light knew; there was probably at least one EMT among them, in case Kira somehow got wind of the event and the truth of it and chose to attack (though the only evidence that they could be of any use came from Light and L themselves). There were a few who were probably genuine mourners, however - for some value of genuine, Light thought, noting a teenager seated on a bench. The boy's head was bowed and he might have appeared to be grieving or praying, were it not for the handheld video game in his hands.

At least the weather was pleasant. The rain had passed, leaving the sky a patchwork of puffy white clouds on a soft blue backdrop, and it was a comfortable temperature for the season, Light thought.

Next to him, the scene seemed entirely different to L's eyes. The gentle, softening mist of the night before had evaporated, leaving the day clear and cold and a little too bright, given the circumstances. The edges of each headstone they passed seemed sharp enough to cut, the sun glaring from polished granite. His feet hurt already; the provided shoes were expensive, but not broken in at all, so while they were unmarred, they did not allow his feet to move the way he was used to. His arches ached and the hard leather edges scraped irritatingly at his bare ankles.

L made no attempt not to slouch as he stood a little ways back from the grave, not looking directly at it. It was different now - the coffin was set over it, on its framework of mechanical pulleys to lower it at the end of the ceremony, already sealing in what was buried at the bottom of the pit.

Light moved away, though he seemed careful to remain within hearing range as he spoke to his father. L stared at the grass in the middle distance - a nearly sickening vibrant green by daylight - and couldn't help but overhear. It was obvious that Light _wanted_ him to hear. The wonder was that Soichiro didn't seem to catch on to the manipulation, when Light asked about the case.

"It's strange," Soichiro admitted in an undertone, rubbing his chin and glancing guiltily over his shoulder in L's direction, "but there have been no new deaths that we can definitively attribute to Kira since the fifth. A serial rapist from Shibuya died last night of congestive heart failure, but he'd been in the prison hospital for over a month."

"So... nothing at all?"

"Not that we've been able to identify, no." Soichiro shook his head; he looked weary and uncertain. "I'm not sure what to make of it. Kira has... gone on hiatus, before..."

Light frowned. "Maybe Kira's waiting for news of L's death. Fewer killings mean fewer obituaries to read, and fewer stories for the TV networks to cover."

"You might be right." Sighing, Soichiro tipped his head towards L slightly, his expression going fatherly and stern. "But let's not talk about it any more today, Light, if it can be helped."

Light was trying to prove, once again, that L could trust him. It was almost enough to make the detective laugh. The younger man didn't like to leave anything out of his control, did he.

A slight breeze ruffled through L's hair, not quite ruining the job he'd done brushing, and L glanced toward the coffin. He wished the priest would hurry so that this would be over with more quickly, no matter what that meant for the rest of the day... or the rest of his life, for that matter. It struck him that no matter how much everything had changed and no matter how much he'd miss Watari, there was nothing more than an empty, chemical-laden corpse in an expensive box over there. This was meaningless. It was nothing but a mindless tradition.

Watari's murderer returned to stand at his side, and he was grateful for the company, even if Light seemed unable to fathom the horror he'd enacted. The task force members were the only others that could share this experience at all, but perversely, given his role, Light was undeniably the closest to understanding.

Finally the priest arrived, and shook hands, and moved to stand behind a slim podium set up near the grave. When everyone had taken their places in the folding chairs at the graveside, all having finally arrived, the gentle-seeming man began to speak, his lingering British accent almost jarringly foreign to L's ears after only a few months. The drone of his voice would have been a comfort if it hadn't recalled other such experiences for L, long since past.

No church bells here. That was a small mercy. L closed his eyes, lowering his head a little - to all appearances, a grieving son, for lack of a better term. But all he could think about was the empty, disconnected nothingness to which Light had consigned Watari - and all those he'd killed. L wondered if that horrific consciousness only lasted until the brain itself died for lack of oxygen. That would be merciful, though without the sense of time, there would be no way for the victim to know that there was an end to look forward to...

All would eventually face death, but to be responsible for another human's demise, never mind the sheer number of such atrocities Light had committed... well. L himself had called it unforgivable. And then, in nearly the same breath, he had ordered Kira to be the method of a convicted killer's execution.

L had never for a moment pretended that he wasn't unforgivable as well - for so, so many things.

For this.

He didn't know when he'd pulled his feet up onto the chair and wrapped his arms around his shins - it was surprising that his legs didn't slip, with the new soles of the shoes, and even with the painkillers the position hurt, but he didn't care. But at some point he had, staring blankly at nothing. The priest had to prompt him twice to stand, as a technician began to lower the coffin, but didn't seem to mind at all.

L let the first handful of dirt fall from his fingers onto the coffin, staring almost distractedly at the way the soil tumbled through the air and speckled the sinking white lillies laid on the coffin's lid. Then he shoved his hand back into his pants pocket without so much as brushing it clean, and slouched back toward the parking lot without looking back or waiting for anyone else.

"Ryuuzaki!"

L was almost to the car by the time Light caught up to him. The younger man jogged to a halt, his tie flapping over his shoulder for a moment before falling back into place when he slowed. He was flush-faced, more from the crisp breeze than the short run, and as he fell into step beside L, he combed fly-away hairs back into place with his fingers.

"My father will be coming in a minute, after the team decides who's going home and who's going back to headquarters," he said, "so it shouldn't be much of a wait." He bit at his lip for a moment. "Are you...?"

But he couldn't get the words out; he couldn't even make eye contact. For once, the mask wouldn't fit properly. Light couldn't pretend that the grief and loss weighing visibly on L's hunched shoulders were anything but his doing, and there was nothing he could do to change that now, and it bothered him far more than he could admit.

Light bowed his head, staring at the gravel beneath his and L's immaculate black shoes, and curled and uncurled his hands at his sides for a few indecisive moments.

L leaned against the back of the car, hands still in his pockets, head still down - he'd neither looked up nor acknowledged Light when the other man had caught up to him, and he felt little need to speak to him now. From his angle, he glimpsed the slight calluses on Light's right hand from the use of a writing instrument. The detective looked a little to the side to focus his attention on the ground.

Hesitantly, Light extended his left arm and laid a hand on his friend's shoulder. His thumb just brushed the edge of the off-white scarf, which L hadn't removed at all throughout the funeral. "I'm sorry, Ryuuzaki." The words were laughably insufficient, a particularly senseless platitude, and that only added to the strange distress of the situation.

The contact was a slight shock. Coupled with the simple apology, it was enough to make L close his eyes, lips twitching in a mirthless smile. He wanted to laugh at how ridiculous this was, but the sound wouldn't safely come without, he thought, the threat of hysteria. So he remained silent.

Soichiro was approaching, considerately using the vehicle's remote to unlock it for them before his arrival, providing them another few unobserved moments. Light started to reach for the car door as he heard the locking mechanism click; something crinkled beneath the fingers of his right hand as he withdrew it from the pocket of his slacks. The mochi...

As he and L slid into the back seat and belted themselves in, Light turned to the other man. "Will you tell me about him some time?" he asked quietly. "I hadn't realized that he was... that the two of you were so close."

Light paused, then reached over and wordlessly set the two small, plastic-wrapped cakes beside L on the leather seat. He hadn't really known Watari, but Light felt certain that the gentle-mannered old man would not have approved of L starving himself under any circumstances.

L stared at the wrapped mochi - a strange sort of peace offering, with Light's words. But he only considered for a moment before reaching for one. He still didn't look at Light, but eased in his seat a little as he unwrapped the confection.

"When I was six my parents and I were in a car accident. They died and I spent more than a year primarily in a church orphanage before Wammy found me. I was what he was looking for, so he took me in." He shrugged and popped the entire mochi into his mouth in one bite, speaking around it. "Not much more to it than that." He licked a little of the sweet tapioca starch that had coated the mochi from his fingers before reaching for the second one. It truly, completely did not matter what Light learned of him now, after all; it could hardly make him more vulnerable to his companion.

For a moment, Light's face betrayed his surprise - his eyes widened and his lips parted fractionally, and he became, briefly, the teenager he truly was, inexperienced in the hardships of life. For all that he had done as Kira, rarely had any of it been as truly, inescapably real as this moment, and for a nauseating second Light recalled the biker he had killed so early on, the squealing tires and the shouts of alarm, and the blood and twisted metal and the taste of bile in his mouth and...

Six years old. Light couldn't even begin to fathom a life without his parents and sister _now_, let alone at that age - of course, once he'd joined the investigation, Light had privately acknowledged the possibility that he might someday be faced with the necessity of killing his father to protect his own secrets, but he'd never let himself dwell on it. He lacked even the basic framework of personal experience to imagine what it had been like for L to lose both his parents at once, and then to be placed in an orphanage, alone among strangers.

The bell, L had said, days ago, on the roof, in the rain... Light wondered if there had been a bell tower at that church orphanage.

"Subtle, by the way," L commented as he opened the second mochi. "Talking to your father like that." It was impossible to tell if he was being sarcastic or not. "I'd intended to ask about the case after the service. Was the Shibuya rapist unlikely coincidence or a delayed reaction?"

He took a little more care with the second mochi, taking a bite and appearing to study the marshmallow-lined interior, and squeezing out a little of the strawberry jelly filling to lick away. It didn't really matter, but for some reason, speaking seemed to still his mind - or rather, push it back into gear, as though he were waking up again. He really had been going to ask. He'd also intended to try to convince Soichiro to take him back to headquarters so that he could get back to work, which he'd been certain would have been far more comforting than any family dinner. But...

Light blinked and swallowed - his mouth was very dry. It was likely the effect of sleep deprivation, he thought. "I've kept my promise, L," he insisted. It was true; the Shibuya rapist had been on his mental roster of just-in-case criminals, but he'd never needed to use any of those names, and that man had been fairly low-priority because he was already dying. "Kira hasn't killed anyone since the fifth."

The driver's-side door handle clicked and Soichiro entered, easing himself into the seat with a quiet exhalation, not exactly a sigh, which Light recognized as a sign that his father was tired and emotionally drained. He quickly shuffled the matter of his promise to L to the back of his mind, along with any inclination to consider Kira's next move as anyone but a member of the task force.

"Light-kun, I've been thinking," L said, possibly a little more loudly than was necessary. "Perhaps you could assist me in writing my obituary. It'll need to be convincing, but brief, and possibly seem to be coded. We'll have a few national papers run it and see if it catches Kira's eye."

"That's a little bit morbid, don't you think?" Light angled his head to one side as he looked at the other man, his expression simultaneously worried and slightly dubious. "It's a good idea, Ryuuzaki, and of course I'll help you - but don't you think you owe yourself a little time to recover?" He raised a hand, palm up, fingers spread loosely, pleading.

"I agree," Soichiro put in, pausing to look back at L as he slid the key into the ignition. "You've been through a lot these last few days."

L gave Light a withering look at the suggestion, certain that if he spent much longer "recovering", he'd require a straightjacket. "At this point it would be far better for me to return to the case," he asserted, looking away again - into the rear view mirror, that Soichiro might see him. "I highly doubt that Kira will be so considerate as to wait indefinitely for my return before he resumes killing. Posting my obituary may draw him into action once again. If he believes me deceased, he may begin to proceed less carefully, as well."

He paused, looking away, out the side window. "If we continue to find no sign of Kira's activities, we'll have to concentrate on the data we already have, but we've been over that rather thoroughly. There may be no choice but to suspend the case indefinitely until Kira kills again, if this keeps up."

"We can only hope," Soichiro responded, his voice warm.

Light stared at the back of L's head for a moment, his expression displaying the same sort of warmth as his father's voice - but the thought of what would happen should the case be suspended weighed on him. Only if Kira resurfaced would L have a reason to stay in Japan. There had to be a way...

When the drive was underway and Soichiro was paying more attention to traffic than his passengers, L turned back to Light and caught his eye, the barest hint of amusement tugging at the detective's features. He silently mouthed one incredulous word.

_Morbid?_

* * *

**Disclaimer: **Death Note (manga, animation, novels, etc.), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Taugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata/SHUEISHA Inc./Madhouse/DNDP/VAP, and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	9. I Don't Know How To Speak To You

**Authors' Note:** The title for this chapter is from the song _Gentlemen Who Fell _by Milla Jovovich (yes, the actress, of whom I'm quite fond - L). Highly recommended. The full lines from the chorus are "I don't know how to speak to you; I don't know how to trust you; I don't know how to live your you; I don't know how to love you."

The instrumental _Into New Voyages_ from the end of the _Wild Arms_ (90s Playstation video game) soundtrack is another good song for this chapter.

* * *

**Furious Angels I: Nameless Here Forevermore**

**Chapter 09: I Don't Know How To Speak To You**

* * *

L found it strange to enter a house that he'd never been to before, and have it feel familiar. He knew the Yagami home's complete layout from the surveillance footage he'd watched, to say nothing of the behavioral patterns of the occupants. He knew that the flowers on the end table were new, and that the kitchen was just around that corner, and how many steps it took to reach the door of Light's room from the bottom of the stairs. The only unexpected thing was the scent - the dinner cooking, obviously, and the flowers, and... the unmistakable scent of apples.

He wondered if this was what it felt like when someone came home after a long absence. Probably not.

The detective did his best to politely greet Light's mother and sister, who crowded near the entryway, but his shoes were really beginning to hurt and were too stiff for him to simply step out of. He had to sit to remove them, and if anyone thought it odd that he hadn't worn socks, no one said anything.

Sachiko did, however, gasp and immediately point out the downstairs bath with the first aid supplies, the moment she saw the raw patches on his ankles where the shoes had rubbed. Sayu said she'd be right back with guest house-slippers.

Light hung his jacket in the hall closet and exchanged his shoes for a pair of slippers, still puzzling over the single word L had mouthed at him in the car. In retrospect, "morbid" _had_ been a poor choice, given the circumstances, but had L pointed it out to remind Light that he knew the truth of Kira's identity, or simply because he was amused? Was it even worth being concerned over?

Sayu brought two pairs of slippers - simple black, and soft white scuffs decorated with rabbit faces and ears. It took L a long moment to realize that she was probably trying to make him smile; he didn't, but chose to wear the bunny slippers, his expression perfectly serious the entire while. Sayu grinned for him, as though they were sharing a joke, and offered to take his scarf and hang it up. L refused, claiming he'd been ill and that the scarf helped his throat. It was true, after a fashion, after all. He decided to tell Light later how inconsiderate he was, leaving bruises that were difficult to hide when L had only given bruises that even a dress shirt collar could hide.

Sayu was nothing like so academically inclined as Light, L thought, but socially, she exceeded him. While they'd never met before, the girl had extended such a gesture knowing only that he was a close acquaintance of her brother and father. It struck him as a rare gift, and something entirely outside his realm of experience - in her position, Light would never have done the same; he'd merely have been respectful. She seemed to make up for the empathy he lacked.

It wasn't that L didn't appreciate it - only that he found most social interaction wearing under even the best circumstances. To be subjected to such intensity in his present state was draining.

As he turned away from the closet and saw the way that L seemed to be trying to make himself less noticeable, Light couldn't help but smile. The detective looked so utterly lost - so helpless and bewildered by the normalcy of the situation - that the younger man nearly laughed. "Come on, Ryuuzaki," he said, putting an arm around L's shoulders (L barely winced) to guide him towards the living room. Lowering his voice, he added, "And don't mind my family. My mother's lonely with me and my father away so much lately, and Sayu..." Light glanced back in the direction of the hall, to where Sayu had just finished giving her father a hug and was now watching them with wide, curious eyes, and said loudly, "Sayu is just a busy-body who likes to think she might get some dirt on her big brother someday."

"I am _not_!" Sayu called back, puffing up in mock offense at the grin Light flashed at her. "Anyway, it's about time you made some college friends, Light, instead of sneaking off to hotels with your girlfriend all the time!" She started to stick her tongue out, but Soichiro very deliberately cleared his throat, and she thought better of it, likely remembering the reason for the visit; she ducked her head sheepishly and hurried up the stairs to her room.

There was no escaping the charade even here, was there, L thought, blinking wide-eyed at Light while Sayu was still within earshot. "Ah, is that what you've been up to," he said placidly, earning a mild glare from Light. Somehow, the fact that it was Light's arm across his shoulders made the contact easier to tolerate, but just barely. L recalled lying dazed with his head in Light's lap, and remembered Light incoherent and sobbing and clinging to him in the hospital, and thought of lying still at night waiting for healing sleep to claim him with the dubious security of Light's hand on his chest. It made him feel strange and unguarded and he didn't much like it, but there was little he could do about any of it.

Light led his companion into the living room and got him seated, then excused himself to get the first aid kit, waving off his mother's offer of assistance. She hadn't seen much of her husband recently, and Light thought it best for everyone if his parents had a moment to themselves. He doubted L had the stamina for Sachiko's considerate doting, particularly on a nearly empty stomach and no rest since the night before.

Left alone for a few minutes in the living room, L inspected his surroundings. The source of the mysterious apple scent was revealed - there was a large jar candle burning on the half-wall that separated the living and dining rooms, doubtless part of Sachiko's preparations for receiving company, though L wondered at her choice of scent. He settled on staring at the collection of books on the coffee table before him: a few books of themed photography designed for guest entertainment, a seemingly misplaced cookbook that Sachiko had probably been studying, and a few carelessly piled books about drawing - likely Sayu's, as they were manga-themed. Light's graduation photo from some months before caught his eye as well, but... he'd been observing Light at the time. The photograph had little to tell him, other than how much his family valued his achievements.

L realized that he felt a little envious of that. Only Watari had ever really praised him for his achievements, and it seemed that none of those had ever been so simple as graduating high school with the highest marks possible.

When Light returned with the first aid supplies, he found his friend in much the same position as he'd been left. Light crouched and set the box of medical supplies on the floor, resting on one knee as he removed cotton balls and a tube of antibiotic cream from the kit. "You really should have worn socks," he pointed out, looking up with a sympathetic half-smile. "Here." He motioned with his left hand, indicating that L should extend a foot so that Light could clean the abrasions before covering the wounds.

"I can't stand socks," L murmured, straight-faced, extending his foot as indicated, like a child. It wasn't as though the admission changed anything.

"Obviously," Light remarked, smiling despite the sarcasm in his voice. He couldn't recall ever having seen L wear socks, not even during the time they'd been shackled together - and though he didn't really understand the detective's apparent need to restrict his wardrobe, he also couldn't imagine L behaving any other way.

It belatedly struck L that he could clean the irritating little wounds himself, and he was about to suggest it...

L's hands tightened on the edges of the sofa cushions, and he stared at Light kneeling at his feet, eyes entirely too wide with the sudden shock of realization. He only watched as Light dabbed the antibiotic cream on the wounds, and slowly closed his parted lips and swallowed tightly. His voice came out low, to keep anyone else from hearing, and curiously strained. "Light-kun..."

"What is it?" Light asked, pausing in his ministrations when L said his name. He immediately noticed the way his friend had tensed, and glanced back down at L's foot, which he still held. "Sorry, am I being too rough? I'm almost... done..."

The words died in his throat.

He saw, in his mind's eye, the two of them sitting in the stairwell at Headquarters, rain-soaked and shivering. He remembered L kneeling, and taking his bare foot in one hand, and stroking the soft towel along the inside of the arch. He remembered the strange sense of vulnerability he'd felt, and the sudden shock of a drop of water from L's still-wet hair landing on his foot, and reaching out to towel the detective's bangs.

"That day..." Light stared for a long moment at L's foot, cradled in his left hand, and wondered if L felt as vulnerable now as he had. He could feel the smooth callus on the bottom of the heel, could feel the warmth radiating from the softer skin of the instep.

L mentally drew back, a cold dread washing over him, though he couldn't place why he wanted to run from this conversation so badly. This was simply neither the time nor place. He shouldn't have attracted Light's attention to the similarity, shouldn't have allowed this. Not here, not now. He meant to jerk his foot from his friend's hand, but the motion was far too weak, and he was still staring at Light.

"Ryuuzaki..." Light still didn't look up. "That day, you said... You were trying to tell me that you knew..."

L's lips parted again in a sudden rush of near-indignance. Of course he'd known. Just because he'd not been able to see all the pieces on the board or know all the rules didn't mean that he hadn't known he was in checkmate. Had he not been clear enough?

"Light, Mom says the food's ready, so if you and Ryuuga-san are..." Peering around the doorframe, Sayu trailed off into an awkward sort of silence. She blinked, looked from L's face to Light's - L seemed to be blushing, and Light was still holding L's foot, a gauze pad in his other hand like a glass slipper - and amended carefully, "Um. Food's ready."

"Thanks." Light flushed a little, making a conscious effort not to look at L. "Tell Mom and Dad we'll be there as soon as we wash up."

The moment that Sayu retreated, L scowled. "Let me do it," he demanded, snatching the bandage from Light's fingers. "You go wash."

They entered the small dining area together, and it was exactly as uncomfortable as L had expected - perhaps even a little worse, because now Sayu kept trying to stare at them without being noticed. Having to smile, albeit briefly, for Mrs. Yagami, and having to weather the edge of pity to everyone's words and actions - that he'd been prepared for, at least, and he disliked it exactly as much as he'd thought he would.

L had expected the food to be another trial all together, but evidently, Light's father had stepped in and informed his wife of their guest's tastes. It was a light meal, considering the early hour, involving tamagoyaki and sweet pork buns and glazed carrots and a few other surprisingly palatable options. L found it easier than expected to sit with his feet on the floor (or at least on the bottom rung of his chair rather than the seat) and take his fill.

The real problem was the conversation - or rather, the fact that Light's mother kept trying to engage him in such. It was soon apparent that brief answers and Soichiro's attempts to distract her would not be enough. Drastic measures were called for.

That meant engaging in a cover conversation. He'd have to enlist help for that, obviously.

So, in answer to Sachiko's "I didn't know when I met you that the two of you had become close", referencing when she'd briefly met L when he and Light had gone to see Soichiro in the hospital after his heart attack, L looked up at Light.

"We'd only met at the To-Oh entrance ceremony, but I suppose you could call us fast friends." He glanced at Light's mother, pushing the corner of his mouth into a slight, perhaps shy smile, before returning his attention to Light. "But then we roomed together during the internship. We were both chosen, since our marks were the same." His smile remained, but if anything, became a little more genuine - but the slight lowering of his head toward Light changed the inflection.

Challenge. L wasn't about to allow himself to be trapped in this uncomfortable situation alone.

He knew that Light's father had made up an intensive FBI internship in Quantico in the United States to explain Light's absence during his confinement - both solitary and when handcuffed to L. It was only natural that college students abroad, with no contact with their far-off families, would have _stories_. The only danger was that Soichiro himself might give something away.

"What was it Misora-sensei called us...?"

Light had known that his mother would be the most problematic of his family members – she loved to talk, and unlike Sayu, who spent the better part of her days at school with friends, Sachiko had been virtually isolated in recent months. She rarely saw her husband and son, heard little of what they had been doing, and rather than filling her time with social visits to friends, she was essentially forced to wait at home alone every day, where she could be contacted quickly if something happened to Soichiro at work, or if Sayu needed a ride. She was starved for interaction, and likely perceived their guest as being in need of equal parts comfort and distraction, both of which she was adept at providing under normal circumstances.

But these weren't normal circumstances, and Light couldn't even tell her that he was working a case with his father and "Ryuuzaki," one which none of them could discuss outside of the investigation team. He had to lie.

Not that the lying that bothered him. He felt it better that his mother not know what he was really spending his time on – particularly with regard to the perceived hazards of the case and the fact that he had been incarcerated for a good deal of its duration – but he resented the way that L had so swiftly and effectively snared him into _his_ lie.

The mention of Misora Naomi was especially galling. It made sense to use her name, since she'd been an FBI agent at one time – but Light couldn't help wondering if L were really telling him that, despite the fact that the task force had never confirmed either her death or her status as one of Kira's victims, the detective knew perfectly well what had happened to her.

_Bastard_.

"I don't think the nicknames translate well," Light replied, shooting L an amused smile across the table that his eyes in no way reflected. For the sake of believability, he clarified for his mother and sister, "Basically, she was poking fun at how similar we are, and how different." He turned back to L. "Only my father and I speak English."

"I'm taking classes!" Sayu put in, puffing up at Light's failure to include her in the English-speaking bracket.

"You've only been taking English since last year." Light waved her off with a teasingly dismissive gesture. "You can barely introduce yourself."

"I can _too_," Sayu huffed, poking the air with her chopsticks and going rather pink. She then proceeded to recite a very practiced-sounding English introduction along the lines of "Hello, my name is Sayu Yagami, and I am fifteen years old." She had a very prominent accent.

"That's very good, Sayu-chan," L exclaimed, turning his wide-eyed gaze on the girl. "You keep that up, and Light'll need to learn something else if he wants to tell secrets around you." He favored Light with a slight smile for a moment before inclining his head toward Sayu, who was sitting next to him, and adding in a false whisper, "I think your accent is better than his."

Luckily, the meal was already nearing completion; there was no need to verbally distract Light's mother again. For dessert, she had tried her hand at tiramisu - L recognized it as being from a boxed mix, but there was nothing inherently wrong with that, and it tasted fine. As soon as Sachiko served the three youngest present, however, she and Soichiro retired from the table.

L conveyed his thanks with a slight smile and a nod, watching the couple leave for the living room - then focused on the tiramisu again. "Your mother is quite kind," he commented without looking at either of his table companions.

Turning his head to watch Soichiro and Sachiko had loosened his scarf, and he reached up to shift it back into place, trying to keep the movement natural by still staring at the dessert and the bite on the fork in his hand the entire time. He very carefully did not look at Sayu, not even from the corner of his eye, and looked up at Light instead. "This is better than what they had at the Italian place close to the dorms, you remember, Light? The place with the waitress that looked a bit like Misa."

Changing the subject was the thing to do now. Keep attention drawn away from observation, fill in the silent gaps. He'd known that this would be exhausting.

When they'd finished, and Light stacked their plates and took them to the kitchen sink, Sayu took the moment alone with L to lean over and ask in a curious whisper, "Are those hickies?" She pointed toward L's throat, though she kept her hand close to her body so as to attract less attention from any observers.

L self-consciously glanced at her, then focused elsewhere - on Light returning from the kitchen - as he tugged the scarf up a little further. She'd seen the fading bruises on his throat. Unable to control the color that stole over his cheeks, he gave a vaguely affirmative grunt, momentarily unable to think of what else he might pass them off as. At least the reaction might seem appropriate for a young man thus caught.

"Are you feeling all right, Ryuuzaki?" Light said, frowning, approaching the table again. "You look a little -"

"I'm only tired," L responded, cutting him off but not speaking quickly enough that he might have been said to snap. "I'm sorry." It was true, at least - his body ached now beyond the painkillers' capability for lack of sleep, and the food, sweet as it had been, had been much heavier and less sugary than he was accustomed to, leaving him sleepy.

"We should head up to my room," Light suggested, finally giving in to L's obvious (to him) social discomfort. "It's already been a long day, hasn't it?"

Sayu didn't protest, graciously telling L to rest well - but she stared after them curiously as they headed upstairs. Light had just reached the top of the staircase when he heard his sister's groan of protest at being asked to do the dishes.

It felt more than a little strange to invite L into his bedroom, knowing that the detective had no doubt seen and memorized every inch of it already. He wondered if it felt familiar to him – wondered, too, what conclusions L might draw from the absence of any pictures of Misa in the room. In fact, other than the selection of books that lined the bookshelf, the room said very little about Light at all – it was almost sterile. But then, L already knew that the slight clutter his living spaces aquired galled Light.

L's head hung tiredly as he entered the room; he barely glanced about. He knew these surroundings perfectly well, and knew that they truly were telling of Light's personality - anything of interest was hidden. He slouched his way over to stand in front of the window. It was early afternoon at this point, and the sky was darkening with heavy promise of rain. The wind had picked up, trees on the street outside swaying, losing leaves of dimming colors.

Light shut the door behind them, but left it unlocked, and made his way over to the bed. He sat and stretched his arms above his head; despite the early hour, he was already tired. Not having slept probably had much to do with it.

"You're welcome to the computer chair, if you'd rather not sit with me," he said, interested to see which L would choose – he'd seemed to accept Light's attempts at apology earlier, after all. "There's the TV and the computer if you don't feel up for talking." And the videogame console, Light thought, though Mario Golf seemed more Ryuuk's speed than L's.

Kicking off his slippers, Light pulled both feet up onto the bed and pulled one leg up a bit as he leaned back against the pillows. "I'm sorry about that," he said at length, looking rather sheepish. "My family, I mean. It's hard, having to lie to them so much… but they're better off that way."

"It's fine," L said, turning away from the window. The statement was less to placate or condone any action of Light's than it was to inform Light that it wasn't necessary to keep talking. Light had mentioned the chair, various distractions, but L only silently settled on the side of the bed that Light wasn't taking up, his back to Light. He scuffed the bunny slippers off and drew his feet up onto the bed - it made the raw patches on his ankles sting, and he paused for a moment, but the bandages held.

L couldn't place how he felt, other than... tired. Heavy. Like the sky outside, threatening to fall. Deep breaths, he told himself, but found the already loosened tie at his throat too constricting and reached up to tug it further loose - the scarf as well, a little, but it seemed strangely pleasant, warm and just brushing his jaw. The dress clothes were rumpled and uncomfortable, but he'd no intention of removing further clothing.

"Just need to rest," he mumbled, and toppled to the side, head landing listlessly on the corner of Light's pillow. "The food." He folded his arm half under himself, and waved listlessly with the other, not really indicating anything but the memory of the dinner they'd just eaten. "A bit much." He rested the side of his mouth against the knuckles of his curled hand and stared at the sky through the window.

He'd been afraid it would happen, really. It was going to take hours to shake this sluggish feeling while his body tried to process the unfamiliar meal. He could barely think. It had nothing to do with having been up all night; why should it? He regularly stayed up far longer, or had, before he'd needed to heal...

Light watched from the corner of his eye as L clambered onto the opposite side of the bed. He really did look tired – worn down in a way he usually didn't, no matter how long he went without sleep – and Light thought to ask if he might want to stay the night, but decided that L would probably refuse. At best, he might nap for an hour or two before insisting that they return to Headquarters.

Leaning back, Light folded his hands behind his head and gazed up at the ceiling. "To be honest," he sighed, "I think I was dreading this almost as much as you were. I'm glad it's over and done with."

That was one thing to be said for L's company – even when they did nothing but lie to one another, there was a level of understanding between them that Light had never experienced with anyone else. He supposed that was the basis of a true friendship… in which case, it was no wonder he'd grown so disturbingly attached to his nemesis. There was a strange sense of contentment to this - simply to resting and sharing space with someone who could understand him, even his deceptions.

Outside, the rain began to fall, fat droplets pattering against the windowpanes.

"Do you want to borrow something to sleep in, Ryuuzaki?" Light asked, sitting up again and turning to face his friend – or his back, at least. L was half-curled, which seemed to be his preferred position to sleep in regardless, but it couldn't be terribly comfortable in dress clothes. "I think I have a turtleneck somewhere that's a size too big…"

L shifted uncomfortably in the stiff dress shirt. "Yes please," he sighed. It seemed a great effort to push himself upright again, and the buttons on his shirt seemed more than his normally dexterous fingers could decipher. After a moment he simply sat cross-legged, hands in his lap, hanging his head.

It was another minute before he realized that no one was going to help him. No one ever would again. With an expression of particular misery, he finally managed to pull the tie all the way off. The scarf he took more care with, unwinding it and folding it carefully flat and laying it on the edge of the mattress next to the pillow. It took longer still to fight enough of the buttons open to be able to awkwardly get the shirt off over his head.

By that point Light was next to him, offering a folded mass of navy blue material; L clumsily took the shirt and pulled it on over his head. It was more than enough to return his hair to its usual state. L wasn't fond of turtlenecks, and he tugged at the collar a few minutes as though he might be able to rearrange it to a more open form, before giving up and flopping back down on his side again.

Light only stood and watched as L fought with the turtleneck, simultaneously amused, perplexed, and a little concerned at such a helpless display. He thought that perhaps he should ask if L was feeling alright – maybe he was coming down with something, or maybe the funeral had troubled him more than he was letting on. But L had already made a passing attempt to explain his weariness, and Light supposed there wasn't much to be gained by pressing the subject. If L didn't seem in better spirits after he'd rested, he could ask about it then.

L curled around himself once more, drawing his knees in as much as he dared and folding his arms, his hands resting on the folded scarf. In contrast to the cool of the cotton sheets, the scarf seemed warm under his fingers, particularly soft. Probably only residual heat from his having worn it, he decided. "I fear that I'm in danger of becoming dependent upon you, Light-kun," he breathed, eyelids heavy.

He'd only just taken up L's dress shirt and begun to fold it when L spoke, and Light looked over at him, startled by the admission. It was entirely likely that this – L's show of weariness or depression, and the admission itself – was nothing more than an attempt to lull Light into a false sense of safety, to make him believe that L was coming to rely on him… but somehow, he didn't think it was a façade, at least not totally. And if it were true, if he'd caught L in a rare moment of vulnerability...

"What are you talking about, Ryuuzaki? It's been a long day for both of us – and besides, it's only a spare shirt." Light's eyes did not glitter triumphantly, and he did not smile more than was appropriate to casually dismiss L's concern, and he only chuckled softly as he turned away and set the folded dress shirt on the edge of his computer desk. But his heart was beating rather fast, and the rising howl of the wind outside thrilled him on some primal level, the rattling of the windowpanes echoing the shiver that raced up his spine.

Perhaps he'd not lost after all.

"Would you like a blanket?" Light asked, but there was no answer – and when he turned around, he realized that L had fallen sound asleep already, one hand at his mouth and the other laid almost protectively over the folded scarf.

L hadn't woken by nightfall, so it turned out that they stayed over after all. Light slept on the floor on the guest futon - his mother's helpfulness at work, and to argue would have been inappropriate. He listened to the rain and the occasional wet sound of L sucking on the very tip of his thumb like a troubled child, and wondered just exactly what he might have gotten himself into.

* * *

L startled awake sometime after one in the morning, and lay staring at the now-gentle rain striking the window, eyes far too wide. Eventually he drew himself up and crouched at the very head of the bed, head in his hands, forehead resting on his knees, regardless of the pain it caused in his torso (that seemed to be less than it had been a few days ago, at least). In a panicked moment he wanted nothing more than to know where Light was and why he wasn't in contact, but almost as quickly he hated himself for that want.

It wasn't as though Light were even far away. He just... wasn't in contact the way he'd been the last time that L had slept, and the lack had been... noticeable.

After a little while, L arose as quietly as he could and crept from the room without waking Light. His chest ached, but he could easily take a few painkillers from the first aid supplies in the downstairs bathroom without disturbing anyone. If he'd been thinking he'd have brought his own, as they were higher strength, but he'd been rather... distracted, lately.

It was still strange to know so well this house that he'd never before visited in person, but the sensation also left L oddly comfortable. He silently descended the stairs and retrieved the tablets with a minimum of noise, with only the nightlight in the bathroom for illumination. After swallowing them dry, he entered the kitchen, and, without turning on the light, navigated to the refrigerator and opened it. After casting about for a few moments, he removed the leftover tiramisu, closed the door, retrieved a spoon from the drawer next to the oven, and went to sit at the table.

He settled into a chair, drawing his feet up only as far as the second rung for the sake of his ribs, and opened the plastic container. There were several servings remaining of the dessert, but he simply took a spoonful directly.

L only sat for a little while with the heavy spoon held in front of him, elbows on the table, chin resting on one hand. Habit told him to eat (and he really ought to chase the pills with something), but at the same time... this was wrong. Watari was gone. This dessert had been made by someone else and hadn't been left for him by Watari. There was no way back to the way things had been, but this wasn't...

He needed... something. He couldn't place just what. It was frustrating.

He needed to talk to someone about this, but the only person he'd trusted that much was gone, and was why he needed to talk to someone in the first place. It hurt. His throat kept trying to close up, and he had to close his eyes and take deep breaths, and somehow it felt like everything was crumbling around him.

Oh god, if this kept up he really would slip and try to talk to Light about it, wouldn't he? There was more wrong with that than he could describe to himself. Light seemed to have no concept of the difficulty, nevermind his roll in the problem. But in spite of everything else, Light was right there with him in a way that no one else was, and he seemed...

L cut off his own train of thought by trying to force down a bite of tiramisu, but he had to stop and concentrate on breathing alone before he could get it down.

He'd just taken his fourth bite, the spoon upside-down partway withdrawn from his mouth, when the light flicked on. L froze and looked guiltily toward the switch.

Yagami Sayu stood with one hand on the switch, staring with eyes nearly as wide as his own. Her shocked expression - almost comical, too much for the reactions he'd seen her display before - quickly softened. "I just came down for a drink of water," she said quietly, with an almost apologetic smile very like Light's. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you."

L lowered his gaze, suddenly very aware of how much of an intruder he was in this household. "Um." He took the spoon from his mouth and was about to set it into the container of tiramisu that he'd clearly been eating from, but hesitated and set it on the table instead. "I..."

"It's all right, it's fine, Mom made it for you," Sayu said quickly. She paused awkwardly, looking at him and the way he wouldn't make eye contact, and seemed to reach a decision. "Here." She turned the overhead light off again, and L heard her feeling her way into the kitchen and opening a drawer before his eyes adjusted.

A moment later, a small flame flared to life on the table in front of him, and Sayu moved away from the table, laying a lighter back in the utility drawer and closing it. She'd lit the apple-scented jar candle and set it on the table. "Seems more appropriate for 2AM, right?" She said cheerfully, retrieving a cup from a cabinet and filling it with tap water. She sat in the chair at the head of the table, closest to him at the corner. "You were just looking a little..."

She trailed off, as though realizing she'd begun something awkward. "I'm sorry," she finally said. "I can't even imagine losing either of my parents at all. I mean, I guess it's something I should think about, with Dad working the Kira case, right? But... they wouldn't even let me visit much, when Dad was in the hospital this past spring." She sighed. "I guess they think I'm too young to be able to handle it or something, but that doesn't seem right either." She paused, and took a few gulps of water, and L only watched, shoulders hunched with his arms folded across his lap.

"I'm sorry. You probably don't need me rambling at you right now." Sayu smiled again, sheepishly, but made no move to rise.

L stared down at the tiramisu, then hesitantly reached for the spoon again, wondering why just hearing someone talk seemed to be helping. "It's fine," he replied, glancing at her with a twitch about his mouth that could have been mistaken for a smile.

Seeing him attempting to eat again seemed to reassure the girl, and her smile became a little brighter, though she still kept her voice down to an appropriate level for the hour. "Maybe it'd be better to talk about something else," she suggested. "You know, get your mind off of things."

"Mm." L took a bite and found it easier to savor this time, the differing textures and flavors of mousse and cocoa and syrup and cake coming through quite well now. How odd - being in the company of someone he didn't know well shouldn't have been so... relaxing.

"So you're Light's roommate?"

His throat nearly seized up again as he swallowed, the borrowed turtleneck suddenly seeming tight, but he managed to get through it. This wasn't so good a turn in conversation. He'd have to be sure to brief Light on what he said later. "I - yes," he nodded.

"That's kind of amazing," Sayu said. "I mean, Mom and I didn't think he'd have a roommate once he moved out. He kind of gets bored with being around people a lot, but you probably know that. But if you're in the same major and everything you two must be together, like, all the time."

L wondered if he'd actually need to say anything; Sayu seemed happy to fill in most of the conversation herself. "Most of the time," he confirmed.

"He must be really used to you. He never worried about any of his other friends like this. I mean, he's brought people over before but that was always just for study group and stuff like that, not to hang out with, basically. But you, I mean, he was helping tape up your feet and everything."

There was an utterly awkward silence, during which L sat with the spoon in his mouth again, and Sayu went a little red in the face as she realized that it sounded like she was making a case for Ryuuzaki being... special, somehow, to her brother. She didn't want to go so far as to ask anything outright, but from the way Ryuuzaki had behaved earlier when she'd asked about the marks on his neck, and the way Light treated him differently from everyone else...

"I really don't have a basis for comparison," L finally said, stabbing the spoon into the tiramisu again. "Light has always been... considerate. Perhaps he's simply changed a little, because of college." He tilted his head. "Or perhaps it's because of your father's health. Light was very concerned when he took ill, as you mentioned."

Sayu seemed to relax. "You're right, that might be it," she said. "He's probably not any more comfortable with maybe losing Dad than I am, but he'd never say anything. He kind of bottles things up." She caught herself and glanced at him. "I'm sorry..."

"No, it's all right." L took another bite.

"That was around when you guys met anyway, wasn't it? That's what mom said..."

He bit down on the spoon. How did she _do_ that...? "Ah. Yes. At the opening ceremony at To-oh."

She nodded. "Well. I'm glad you were there for him."

"Mm." L glanced at her again, trying to decipher the exact meaning of that, but she was looking away and drinking a little more.

"So what do you think about Misa?"

He'd almost been ready for that one. L put a great deal of effort into a noncommittal shrug. "She's all right. She's very... enthusiastic."

Sayu stifled a laugh. "If you're with Light a lot you must see a lot of her too. I bet she gets on your nerves."

"Well." L looked away guiltily. "She does... get in the way. Of studying. Now and then..."

Sayu laughed again. "I knew it. She's way different from the girls that Light usually goes out with." She leaned back and stretched her arms over her head. "I kind of like her though. You know her parents died too? She made her modeling career pretty much from scratch and works really hard. She's pretty strong. She's got lots of guys after her and somehow she picked my brother when he wasn't even chasing her. I bet there's an awesome story there."

"Hm." L glanced at Sayu, and then back at the tiramisu, and concentrated on taking his next bite. "I don't know. It's not as though they talk about it to me. I think there was a bit of mistaken identity involved."

"Aww, I was hoping you'd know all the juicy details," Sayu said with a mock whine. "Light won't talk to me about it either. Honestly, I know more about you two than I do about him and Misa, and that's even after talking to Misa. All she says is that it was love at first sight."

"I didn't know you talked to Misa."

"Yeah, she called the house a couple of days ago worried about Light not answering his phone." She gave L a sidelong look that seemed a great deal like Light's smirk, and L shivered; truly, each member of the Yagami household was formidable in their own way.

"But then she called back because she got a hold of him yesterday and said everything was okay. Said he was just kind of out of it though. He seemed that way when he called here too. He's really worried about you, I think."

"I suppose," L mumbled quietly into another bite.

"I think it's nice to have somebody to worry about you." Sayu arose and set her cup in the sink. "And it's good to have somebody to worry about, too."

"Mm." L looked down at the container in front of him and wondered how it had emptied so quickly.

"So. Um."

"Hm?"

"I was wondering..." She leaned back against the sink, brushing her hair away from her face. Watching from the corner of his eye, L was again reminded of Light's mannerisms. "Do you have somebody...?"

"I'm sorry?" L looked up, almost startled.

"I mean," Sayu shrugged, looking aside uncomfortably but still smiling. "I mean, do you have... somebody. To worry about you. A girlfriend."

L pushed his chair back and got to his feet, and set the empty container and spoon in the sink before answering. "I think you might be a little young for me." He looked Sayu in the face and gave a small half-smile. "Besides, Light would kill me."

She looked shocked; before she could say anything else, L lowered his gaze. "Thank you for the conversation, Sayu-chan."

"You're welcome," he heard her whisper as he left the room.

It wasn't until he got back to Light's room that L remembered what Sayu had asked about the marks on his throat earlier. The turtleneck was distracting enough that he'd momentarily forgotten about the fading bruises themselves.

Well. If the subject came up again, it wasn't as though he'd said that he didn't have a girlfriend. L carefully settled back into Light's bed thinking that he'd put off the question rather well.

But he still didn't sleep the rest of the night.

* * *

**Disclaimer: **Death Note (manga, animation, novels, etc.), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Taugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata/SHUEISHA Inc./Madhouse/DNDP/VAP, and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	10. Stitching Up The Circuitboards

**Authors' Note:** We apologize for the glacieral update rate - Real Life is a harsh mistress. We'd hoped that we'd be up to Christmas in the story in time for it to be posted by Christmas this year, but it doesn't look like that will work out. Very sorry. -_-; But thank you to everyone who's favorited, reviewed, and is reading! It makes our day every time we get a notification.

Also, apologies for the shorter chapter this time; the next will likely run long because of how the scenes work out.

The title for this chapter is from the song _Blinding _by Florence + The Machine (an absolute favorite song with us; highly recommended).

* * *

**Furious Angels I: Nameless Here Forevermore**

**Chapter 10: Stitching Up The Circuitboards**

* * *

L took particular care in arranging the scarf about his throat in the morning, but by the time they came downstairs, Sayu had (mercifully) gone out shopping with friends. Sachiko appeared to be enjoying a quiet morning in with her husband, but Soichiro seemed to be a little uncomfortable - clearly he couldn't decide if he should have left to report to work, or to consider himself to be on duty, as he was waiting to drive L and Light back to headquarters after breakfast. Light waved off his mother's offer of anything more elaborate than tea and proceeded to introduce L to condensed milk on toast - it seemed unbelievable to both of them that L hadn't tried it already, and it went over quite well.

It was fully mid-morning by the time they arrived back at headquarters, but no one seemed to mind. Yagami Soichiro settled in to work as soon as they arrived, taking up a stack of files, but L barely stopped to greet the others, instead (at a nod from Wedy) proceeding almost directly up the stairs. "I'll be in the server room."

Despite the fact that they were still supposed to remain in pairs, he didn't seem to care if Light followed or not, and didn't wait for him to keep up. They walked together at a quick clip, Light trailing a pace behind and scowling at L's brusqueness, and neither of them spoke. Light wondered if L merely meant to inspect the site of Rem's demise more closely – but this time, when L keyed in the security code to open the doors to the server room, the rush of cold, sterile air that hit them carried with it the sound of half-muffled techno music.

"Hey, L."

A head of slightly mussed, lank auburn hair came up between the server banks, accompanied by a raised hand in a fingerless glove. As he followed L into the chilly room, Light could see that the boy – no more than fourteen or fifteen years old, as pale as L, dressed in ragged jeans and a neon green and black hoodie – was seated on the floor, surrounded by a collection of electronics: two laptops, a separate hard drive, at least half a dozen memory sticks, and an original GameBoy, as well as the various tools necessary to access the servers' guts. He was also wearing heavy-framed glasses, and the techno beat grew louder as he slipped large headphones down to hang around his neck, presumably so as to converse more easily.

"Hey," L called back, also in English, completely unphased and approaching carefully to avoid stepping on any of the components scattered across the floor.

"It's gonna take some time to recover the files," the redhead said, exchanging the screwdriver in his hand for the GameBoy and doing something with it that resulted in a tinny victory theme, "but I think I can get 'em all back for ya." He grinned, and only then bothered to actually look up, and blinked in mild surprise as he saw Light. The glasses, as it turned out, seemed to be slightly shaded, and magnified his eyes strangely. "Oh, hey."

It was all Light could do to force a polite smile and a nod of greeting. What was L thinking, letting some kid have access to the entire database, much less expecting him to restore it?

"Good to hear. You gonna want lunch?"

"Wedy said she'd bring me a bento," the boy said cheerfully. "I should have this set up to run by dinner though. Wanna go eat somewhere, find an arcade...?"

"Sure." L paused, frowning slightly, as though he couldn't quite figure out why he'd just agreed so readily. He shook his head. "Anyway. It's Ryuuzaki here."

The boy looked up from what he was doing, his expression skeptical. "Really?"

L's tone was flat. "Really. And this is Light -"

"Right-oh," the redhead grinned, speaking in a distinctly faux British accent, far thicker than he'd been using.

"So what name are you using at the moment?" L asked as his eyes narrowed.

"At the moment?" The boy shrugged like he hadn't really thought too much about it. Then he smirked, bending over his work again. "Master Chief."

"Really." At least it wasn't the worst choice. "Come down to the control center when you're ready, all right?"

"Will do." The teenager waved, but he already seemed absorbed in what he was doing again, cradling a hard drive in his lap and looking up to type something on a laptop with one hand.

L turned and exited the room, glancing back just outside to see that Light was following him. "What? He's good," the detective said in response to Light's skeptical expression as the door closed. "You remember the Helper Elf hack with the supersonic blip representing Santa's sleigh on radar in multiple countries? That was him."

"Well, actually, yes…" Light frowned; he remembered, vaguely, watching a news piece about the incident - the radar blips had even been traveling at an appropriate velocity. "But Ryuuzaki, that was years ago. I don't think I was older than eleven when it happened, and he's Sayu's age!"

Of course, Light thought, if the redhead had been hacking into multinational defense systems at age seven, then it was no wonder that the world's greatest detective had him on call; perhaps he would be able to recover the lost data after all. Light supposed he ought to take measures to find out the boy's name in case he became a problem – but that would involve calling Misa again, and for the moment, Light felt he had enough to worry about. He'd have to mention it on the date he'd scheduled with Misa for the next evening.

At some point, Light decided, he was going to have to ask L why there seemed to be such a marked trade-off of fashion sense for intelligence among his associates, although at least Wedy and Aiber understood the value of dry-cleaning. Being the only genius he knew of who wasn't also eccentric, Light was beginning to feel almost… abnormal.

* * *

Some hours later, while most of the task force was keeping busy by scouring the media for new information (except for Matsuda and Wedy, who were rather obviously watching Sakura TV purely for its debatable entertainment value), they were interrupted by a multi-tonal fanfare that came blaring out of every set of speakers in the room. Light belatedly recognized it as the victory theme from the Final Fantasy videogame series.

Moments later, the auburn kid came strutting in, grinning broadly and flashing a v-for-victory sign with the hand not occupied by his GameBoy. Aiber gave him a high-five as he passed.

"Hey, guys," the boy said, speaking fluid Japanese now. "Hey, Wedy. So, I've got everything up and running…" Tapering off as he shoved his GameBoy into a pocket and registered the stares he was getting from most of the task force, he turned a long-suffering look on L. "You didn't tell them I was here, did you?"

"No, he didn't," Light supplied, glaring sidelong at the detective. Though he was privately relieved that, this time at least, he hadn't been the last person told about a new development, it irked him that Wedy and Aiber apparently already knew the newcomer.

"Neither did you," L pointed out without glancing at Light, poking at his lower lip with one finger as he scrolled through a document on his laptop.

"Don't take it personally, Matt." Aiber, sitting with his feet up on the desk, flicked his newspaper (he was reading the one in Italian now, having finished the French, Polish, and English-language papers earlier that afternoon) in a way that was probably meant to be interpreted as a shrug. "He didn't give us a proper formal introduction either."

"Well, no offense, but I'm a lot more important than you," Matt – no longer merely Master Chief – quipped back, adding, "but I guess that's just how it goes, if even a lovely lady like Miss Wedy gets this treatment."

Light and Wedy both rolled their eyes.

"Far be it from me to fail in my duties as host." L's voice dripped with sarcasm. He closed his laptop, turning his chair away from the desk and hopping out of it. "Everyone, this is -"

"Master Chief."

"- Matt, my computer specialist." L had gestured with one hand, and now jammed it roughly into his jeans pocket as his other was, a visible signal of his discomfort with the social situation despite his calm voice. "Who has just coded and begun to run a program to recover the case's deleted data from the servers, correct?"

"Correctamundo," Matt said, easily giving up on his chosen alias and apparently unphased by the use of a common name, in spite of undoubtedly being aware of some of the particulars of the case. "Hard part was building the cpu to run it. If anybody goes up to the server room, be careful, it's kind of jury-rigged right now and there's some liquid nitrogen -"

"I think it's safely your domain for the moment," L assured him. "Ah. Wedy, I don't suppose you -"

"No."

L stopped short, and blinked, and for just a moment looked entirely bewildered. "No?"

Matt seemed to catch on to something, glancing rapidly between the two. "No worries!" he exclaimed, trotting over to stand next to L. "I should experience the local color, right? That includes public transit. Lead the way. I looked up some arcades -"

"Just a moment!" Soichiro was on his feet, glowering. "You mean to tell us that -"

"The program will have to run at least overnight, probably on into the day tomorrow," L announced calmly, then addressed the teenager. "Unless that estimate has changed?"

"Nope, spot on. Can we go?" Matt looked like he was going to make a comment involving age-related discrimination at any moment.

"So, I should think it's all right to take an early evening," L concluded rather quickly. He gestured to the stack of files that the other task force members had been going over. "Those won't be necessary once the database is recovered."

"Ryuuzaki," Soichiro began sternly again. "I don't believe that it's appropriate right now to-"

"To what?" L seemed to be trying to huddle into his pockets and stare down his elder at the same time. "Keep my word? I did say I'd take him out. Part of the price for services rendered." But he seemed a little helpless as he looked over toward Light. "Light-kun...?"

"Dad, it's fine, I'm going with them." Light waved off his father's concerns with a good-natured smile. "There's really nothing that any of us can do until the database is restored or it's determined that the information is beyond recovery," he added, in an attempt to placate the rest of the task force. None of them seemed willing to believe that a teenager could recover data that was lost to them; Light was somewhat inclined to agree with them, but it occurred to him that, when he'd first expressed an interest in assisting the police with a case, no one had believed he was capable, either, purely because of his age. He felt a sudden, not entirely welcome kinship with Matt. "Really. Even if it doesn't work out, we'd only be behind a few hours in going through the hardcopy files anyway."

Soichiro looked like he wanted to argue, but – faced with both his son and the man who was essentially his superior (and Matt), and the rest of the team looking like they wanted to remain uninvolved – he only grumbled something about "short notice" and nodded his acceptance.

"I'll call you if we stay out late," Light offered by way of compromise. He waved to his father as he turned to follow L and Matt out into the hall, pulling his blazer from the back of a nearby chair, and noticed as he did that Wedy and Aiber were exchanging meaningful looks.

Once they were out in the hall, Light said, "I think my father's worried about you, Ryuuzaki."

"I think he doesn't like being accountable to someone half his age," Matt put in cheerfully, "but yeah, you're probably right." Light wondered how the kid had managed to make a potentially insulting statement sound so positively benign.

"This is less of a problem when I work by proxy," L grumbled.

* * *

It seemed a miracle that they were able to get Matt out of the arcade he'd chosen within four hours, but the sheer number of games he'd been interested in had, at least, kept him from becoming too absorbed in any one game for long. Finally, however, he agreed to leave the noisy, dark room punctuated by glowing screens and clusters of neon, in favor of a far more brightly lit (and relatively quiet) dessert café.

Light, for his part, had found the arcade visit strangely uncomfortable – he did enjoy videogames from time to time, and even had a console at home (though it had been Ryuuk that used it last), but the thick, warm air inside the arcade seemed stifling. He spent most of the duration of their visit feeling distinctly out-of-place, like he was revisiting some long-lost part of his childhood. Like he'd lost something of the person he had been only a year or so ago.

The dessert café was one Light remembered from Sayu's thirteenth birthday; it served a variety of sweets at all hours, but also offered sandwiches and steamed dishes for those who wanted a meal, and so made an excellent compromise. Matt had been interested in the dessert café phenomenon as well, or so he'd claimed – though he settled in with his game almost as soon as they were seated, and was so engrossed that he didn't even notice the food arriving.

The waitress seemed tired - it was the end of the day, for her - and gave L a skeptical look for the way he was sitting (new sneakers left under his chair, feet on the seat despite it hurting a little, ends of the still-worn scarf tucked behind him) as she set their plates on the table, but she made no comment.

Matt didn't look up from his Game Boy even when L pushed one of the two plates of dumplings he'd ordered into his field of view. "Oh, thanks man," he said, without diverting attention from his game.

L stared, expression fairly impassive but for a slight lowering of his eyelids. Without looking, he picked at one of the desserts he'd selected - a piece of layered lemon cake. "Matt," he said with an air of great patience.

There was no sound, for a moment, but the quiet beeping of the Game Boy.

"Matt."

The game played the unmistakable tones of failure. The teenager wrinkled his nose. "Aww..."

"Matt." L's tone had become decidedly clipped.

"What?" Finally looking up, Matt blinked, as though seeing the dumplings for the first time. "Oh, hey!"

L rested his free hand on his knee, his grip the only visible sign of any annoyance. Matt focused on wolfing down his dumplings (using his fingers, and ignoring the dipping sauce) with his eyes returned to the Game Boy screen.

The detective glanced at Light, but the momentary eye contact fell short of asking for help. "I only wanted to confirm that our arrangement is still in place," L said as sternly as he could manage. "Any information you've come by regarding the case will remain confidential."

"Duh." Matt's gaze remained firmly on his Game Boy. "Did have one question, though. For him." He looked up again through his tinted glasses, this time at Light. "Your sister have a boyfriend?"

Light had finished his own dumplings, and was beginning to pick at the fruit salad he'd ordered – but the redhead's casual question nearly made him drop his fork.

"How do you—" he began, but quickly realized that Matt surely had access to the profiles of everyone involved with the Kira case, which would include the suspects and their families. He leveled a sour look at Matt across the table. "My sister isn't old enough to be dating anyone."

"Sure she is." Matt's amicable smile made Light want to kick him under the table. "She's fourteen, right? And the age of consent in Japan is thirteen, so…"

"Seventeen. Prefectural and municipal laws take precedence."

"That law's for interactions between adults and minors."

Light's eyes narrowed. He wasn't entirely surprised that such an obnoxious foreigner had investigated said law. "She's still to young to be dating anyone."

"I'm younger than she is."

"Your parents are obviously more permissive than mine."

"I don't have parents." Matt grinned like Light had walked into a trap.

Light was unphased. "I never would have suspected. You dress like that all the time, then?"

The redhead snorted. "Nice try. Not my fault I'm light-sensitive. No pun intended. I'm looking into a better solution, for your information." He tapped the shaded glasses with his middle finger.

"I was talking about the overall look." Light gestured casually; the boy had never removed the headphones or hoodie, and in the warm illumination of the café, it was clear that his clothes were a bit the worse for wear. "Sayu appreciates a little more care in one's appearance. Besides, our parents would never approve of her dating a foreigner at her age. A relationship would accomplish nothing."

The teenager's grin took on a slightly smug edge as he pushed his first emptied plate toward the middle of the table and dragged the second closer. "Well, they'll have to come to terms with that kind of thing eventually, won't they?"

"Matt." L glared at the boy with an expression usually reserved for Matsuda.

"What makes you say that?" Light took a bite from his fruit salad with an affected air of disinterest, gaze downcast. The Polite Conversation phase of the interaction seemed to be nearing its end. "Sayu isn't interested in dating right now, anyway. She needs to focus on her classes."

Through some miracle, the boy picked up on the reactions and suddenly went quite vague in his response. "Oh, you know, just... the state of the world..." He swallowed, accepting the deflection. "She really seems to focus on potential relationships more than classes. Having a boyfriend might help her focus better." Obviously it was an entirely logical conclusion.

"She's a teenage girl. Of course she's interested in potential relationships." Light stabbed with his fork at a piece of mandarin orange in his fruit salad with unusual precision. "But you know, everything else aside, you'd be going up against Ryuuga Hideki, the idol. I don't think there's any shame in admitting you're outclassed there." He finally looked up at his opponent again, smirking. From the angle of his head, the expression was particularly disturbing.

It was Matt's turn to be unimpressed. "Yeah, well, you might have a point there. Might be good to let her develop a few more years anyway."

L closed his eyes and lowered his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Light scowled as though he'd a scathing response on the tip of his tongue, but only took another bite of fruit, chewing in a distinctly aggressive manner. "Maybe so. Personally, I've found that women don't really mature until after highschool, and that's if you're lucky. What about you? Do you have any siblings?" His voice was flat despite the feigned interest in continuing the conversation.

"Oh, tons. Wait... you're not pissed at me for asking, are you?" Matt grinned, undaunted. "Dude, lighten up, it's a compliment. Your sister's cute. It'd be more insulting if I didn't ask." He swallowed half a dumpling in one bite, apparently without chewing. "You have a girlfriend, you get it, right?"

L sighed with an unmistakable air of begging the discussion to end, and took several unusually large bites from his cake in rapid succession.

"Yeah, I suppose..." Light seemed suspicious of the teenager making any sense whatsoever. "I guess I'm just too traditional. From what I understand, a lot of the English-speaking world has a slightly different stance on relationships between minors than we do here in Japan. Misa's really the first serious girlfriend I've ever had."

Matt snorted. "Seriously? Geeze that's depressing, given how much you seem to avoid her."

L finished his cake, looking morose.

Light smiled thinly. "On the contrary, I don't know what I'd do without her."

"Oh, I don't mean -"

L's fork rattled on his empty plate as he set it down. "_Matt_."

"- Uh, professionally. I mean she's got a nice rack but other than that..."

Light's jaw clenched and he set his fork down as well, his right hand visibly twitching. "Well, you haven't met her yet, have you? Just wait until you do - I'm sure you'll change your mind."

"Oh, I probably won't get to, sorry to say." Apparently oblivious to Light's reaction, Matt finished another dumpling. "Out of here soon as the database is back up." He turned to L, apparently not wanting him to feel left out of the sparkling conversation. "Hey, think you can get Wedy to wear that catsuit of hers before I go? I want pictures."

"Your taste in women is life-endangering," L sighed, picking up a piece of mochi between thumb and forefinger.

"Oh, come on, you can't tell me you haven't looked." The boy outright leered, but on his gawky, bespectacled form, it came out looking rather comical.

L was suitably unimpressed. "I fail to understand the attraction."

"Seriously? Dude how have you not noticed that her tits are phenomenal."

"I think perhaps I simply do not share your fixation."

"Oh, come _on_, man!" Matt made a grabbing motion with both hands, palms upward, and jerked his head toward Light. "He can back me up, right? Bet he can't keep his hands off his girlfriend's."

Light simply stared at the display, his expression curiously similar to L's. "I'm not dating Misa just for her bust, you know. I appreciate her devotion. She's been very understanding and patient with this whole mess."

"Wait, you're saying you never even copped a feel?" The redhead gave Light an incredulous stare before shaking his head. "Geeze, you guys are both hopeless. I mean, how can you not want to? They're like..." He grabbed a piece of mochi from L's plate. "Like this, kind of soft and velvety and just squishy enough -"

Watching Matt, L casually bit the piece of mochi in his fingers in half.

Matt stared at him open-mouthed for a moment before finally giving up. "Harsh. You guys are no fun." He managed silence while he finished his second plate of dumplings and drained most of his bubble tea (and ate his stolen piece of mochi), but was the first to stand when L and Light finished their food as well - though how he noticed was beyond either of them, considering that his eyes had returned to his game and remained there the entire time. "Lemme hit the bathroom and then we can get you two back in your Pokéballs," he said, stretching his arms above his head. "You really gotta lighten up, guys."

A few moments after the boy left the table, L sighed, wincing a little as he pushed back and lowered his feet to his sneakers - his position had been more for Matt's benefit than his own. "He's useful, but I'll be impressed if he survives his adolescence."

* * *

A few hours into the night, Light woke, and realized that it was L's voice and movements that had roused him. L came awake almost instantly when Light shook him, but said nothing - only lay still for a moment until his body calmed, then turned on his side, his back to Light, to return to sleep.

L woke early. He was crouched with his laptop at the desk when Light awoke, already on his third package of wrapped cupcakes. He'd tried making tea, but grimaced as he sipped - it had over-steeped and no amount of sugar could take the edge from it. He seemed sullen, and barely spoke to Light, who did not press for a reason.

True to Matt's word, the database was recovered by mid-morning; by mid-afternoon the server room was restored to its previous state, for the most part, and Matt himself had disappeared. He was on his way to the airport by the time Misa appeared on the front steps.

In the control room, it was Matsuda that responded to the chime of the front door's intercom. "Oh hey, it's Misa-Misa! We haven't seen her for a while!"

"Days," L said dryly, looking up from his monitor, where he was making a show of reviewing data. He glanced at Light. "I suppose you should go see her."

* * *

**Disclaimer: **Death Note (manga, animation, novels, etc.), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Taugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata/SHUEISHA Inc./Madhouse/DNDP/VAP, and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


End file.
